These last few weeks the topic of perspective has come up in my life a lot. It first started with my daughter Emilyn. When we are out on adventures (running with her in the stroller) I used to point things out "tree, car, van, baby, dog, etc." Now she does the same to me but she seems to have a very different perspective of the world. She points out a dog or a duck ect. and I look for it and keep looking and eventually find an obscure picture of a dog some where. She sees the smallest details in the world that I pass by. It makes me wonder what else we gloss over in our lives.
We got some fingernail polish on one of our adventures! She loves her pink toes!
Watching family videos... her favorite past time.
I helped out at girls camp a couple weeks ago. This is a week long camp my church puts on for the uplifting and edification of 12-18 year old young women. It is amazing to see these brilliant and steadfast Young Woman who are such an example to me. While I was there I was obviously continuously training. I had a couple people ask me/tell me to take a nap during our "free time." In my sleep deprived state, (there were two days I worked out longer than I slept at night) people telling me to forget about working out because I "chose" to really aggravated me.
Some of the time scheduling of girls camp.
Again, this is all about perspective. I have in fact chosen to be a professional athlete, with that comes some mandatory things, like putting my time in swimming, biking, and running. As a pro triathlete I don't really have PTO days to take during a full week of girls camp. The choice was to be a professional athlete not whether or not I was going to work out that week. In my opinion I had as much of a "choice" to go bike as Scott has to go to work. Yes, the choice is there, but there would be some not so good ramifications if he didn't go in. I think that that week was a turning point in how I view my life as a pro triathlete. I have always viewed it as just something fun, which it still is, but I don't think I'll ever see the potential until I have the complete perspective that my days on the bike, running, or swimming, aren't a choice, the choice happened before today.
Daddy daughter date while I was gone.
One more little story. At girls camp I had someone ask me about the extremeness of the Ironman training I do. They mentioned a recent story that has come out about an ultra runner who's heart was just as bad as a sedentary person. I haven't read the complete story but believe that as my church teaches, "moderation in all things." I know many people would not consider what I do moderate exercise, but I believe that moderation is different for everyone. A moderate meal to a 250 lb active male is not the same moderate meal to me obviously. I have a long athletic history so my body is used to doing a lot more than someone who has no athletic history.
I will end with a little positive note. I am sure that everyone has had an experience where they buy a car and then notice that there seem to be a lot more of those cars on the road. The amount of Honda Fits or any other car has not changed from yesterday to today, but perspective has changed. Sometimes we feel as though we don't have control over our lives, and no matter if we do or not, we do have control over what we notice. Let us all "buy" happiness, joy, good workouts, laughs, or smiles so we will notice them more even in the short little moments they happen.
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