Last night I actually got down to the
YMCA to swim laps! I’m very proud of myself. I’ve never swam laps
before and to be honest I found the whole thing a little intimidating.
I didn’t know the rules or the customs. I kept expecting someone to
come along and tell me I wasn’t doing something right or to give me a
hard time for not following a rule I wasn’t aware of. I haven’t swam
like that in a very long time. I didn’t want to look silly or have
people laugh at me. Really, it was something I knew I was bad at but
decided I wanted to go ahead and do it anyway. When I got there I went
to the lifeguard and told her that I had never done this before and
although I got the idea that it was pretty much down-and-back — was
there anything else to it? We talked a little and got everything sorted
out. I had bought some goggles last year in preparation for this night.
As you can imagine I’ve been working up to it for quite a long time. So
I started swimming in the slow lane. In one direction I swam the crawl
and in the other direction I swam the breast stroke. I went down and
back several times and then it started getting hard. I pushed and
pushed and swam and swam and when I finally ran out of steam I looked
at the clock. It had only been five minutes. Holy cow, that was hard!!
But I decided I had more left in me so I kept swimming. Down and back.
Down and back. Finally, when I thought I couldn’t swim another stroke I
stopped and rested. It had only been five more minutes since the last
time I checked! But I was ready to throw in the proverbial towel and
started to make my way to the ladder. But then I stopped myself and
said “I can do better than 10 minutes! I know I’m tired and worn out
but I can do a couple of more laps. I know I can!” And I did. I went
slowly down and back a few more times and since I was in the slow lane
there was nobody chasing me or hassling me about wanting to pass me. It
was exhausting! I was totally wiped out when I finally stopped for the
third time. But I was also very proud of myself for trying it out and
for the exceptional effort I put in. A person can tell when they’re
actually putting in a lot of effort or just killing time and all this
exercise has been rewarding for me largely because of the consistently
high level of effort. My old football coach would be proud — he hated
me for not trying. Several coaches were like that. It felt that way
anyway. And they were right, I wasn’t giving it my best and it showed.
Now, I’m really working hard and doing my very best and although its
unpleasant it results in the difference between accomplishing my goals
and failing. The small, infinitesimal successes feel really good. And
that’s something I was never able to achieve by giving 80% of my best.

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