Communism and Corvettes

I have run with a couple of friends this week and had lunch with a few as well, and there is this over-riding theme that we don’t really talk about, but you can tell it is there.  That theme is that we are all just trying to get by, make a paycheck, pay the bills, do what we can to not get laid-off, and press on (go to bed, get up in the morning, and do it again).  There seems to be no time for passion or time for us to reflect and attempt to write a new – or a different – story for our lives.  At least in the movie Groundhog Day, Phil Conners gets to change how he approaches each day.  We seem to be stuck in the same day, yet feel as though there is nothing we can do about it. 

Have we always been this way, yet I’m just now seeing it?

This over-riding theme seems to slip into most of the conversations I have anymore.  Sometimes it is directly addressed; other times it is the elephant in the room.  Yet, I can feel its power over the conversation.

Is it just me?  Am I the pessimistic one now; poisoning those around me with negativity?  (I swore I’d never be that person, but could I be…..)

Is it the economy?   (Forget that I asked that, it’s too easy to say, “Ya, it’s the economy”)

During my drive home from running this morning, I started thinking about Russia and how hopeless their citizens were back in the middle to late part of the last century.  Russians had everything they needed to survive, yet from what I was taught in school, they had no ability to change their plot in life (or so they thought).  Let me repeat myself; they had everything they needed to survive.   Why were they so hopeless?  Was it the Communist regime?  Could it have been that there was nothing to fight for?  Wasn’t everything already provided?  Why the hopelessness?

Is there a link here?  

Is it possible to get passionate about something if all of our needs are met?   

Do our survival needs make us passionate people?

What if, once our survival needs are taken care of, we were programmed to start focusing on other people’s survival needs?  There is something I could get passionate about….

Or I could go take out a loan and buy a mid-life crisis Corvette.  I’d probably opt for a Black one; it would go well with my iPhone.

 

…running through my mind…

Lack of Running.

 

I got injured a few weeks back by an aggressive Agave plant while hiking outside of El Paso. Since the injury my running has been sporadic and I have once again proven to myself that running is a release that I need in my life. As I sit waiting, I’m thinking about what route I’ll run when my wife gets home; if I’ll listen to music or a Rob Bell sermon or nothing at all; if I’m going to wear long sleeves or not; if I’m going to go for a leisurely run, or something more aggressive; if I’ll even get anything mentally from my run today. All this is on my mind before I even put the Asics on my feet.

I think I enjoy this pre-run “meat” as much as I enjoy the run and the post-run stuff.

Two days before I was stabbed by that Agave plant, I found a nice canyon outside of El Paso to get in a good out-and-back of 4 miles. I could tell that there was a decent rise up the canyon and then a good downhill run back to the car. I thought this would be a great run to get my brain stimulated – I had already been stuck in a hotel room for a day and a half, so I needed some brain arousal!

Here is the run:

Garmin Connect – Activity Details for El Paso Canyon Run

I experienced a total disregard for the terrain and a lack of respect for that part of the country by ignoring that I was starting the run at 4,300 feet of elevation, not to mention that the canyon actually rose close to 600 more feet! Needless to say, the first half of the run the only thing I could think about was survival; breathe…breathe…breathe. Survival was all I could wrap my mind around.

This got me to thinking.

I bet there is a lot of instances in my life that I’m in survival mode and not paying a bit of attention to what is going on around me. Heck, it could have happened to me today, and I have not had time to think about it. Better yet, I haven’t taken the time to think about it.

How many times are those around me in this same survival mode yet I don’t see it, don’t feel it or don’t sense it and I end up not doing anything to help?

I wonder how many times I take someone’s little things they do that annoy me and I see them only as annoyances and not the cry for help – the cry for survival – that they could possibly be?

I know that I’ve been climbing that little rise in the route many times in my life. As I gasped for survival, I’m not sure that I ever really knew I was gasping until it was over. I don’t think I ever really knew how close I was to not finishing; how close I was to not relating to anything else in the world other than breathe…….breathe……breathe.

I wonder if it is easier for people not in the survival mode to recognize someone who is in that mode…….and help ease them back to something other than gasping?

…running through my mind…