Okay, I'm stressed. It is a dull nervousness that makes my fingers cold and my mind go blank. I'm not even sure why I feel stressed. Most of the urgent work is out of the way; my boss and colleagues will be leaving for a two-week holiday soon; and I'm in a very good place at work now. But I received something in the mail today that is making me all jittery.
All it says is.. "Here is the xxxx renewal contract for your confirmation" and my legs have all turned to jelly. Me, sign? All I've signed so far are misery little receipts for misery little amounts. No big deal, right, put your name on the dotted line and the sum will be deducted from the company's coffers. Have I told anyone that I hate spending money?
I think I'm going to go make a powerpoint or two to calm my nerves before looking at that email again. Meanwhile, I need to stop mumbling "stress.." under my breath in the pantry so my colleagues won't walk into me and think I'm a wuss, which I am, anyway.
P.S. 4 more days to the race and I am eating PURE JUNK. Sigh.
P.P.S OWEN MEANY is restoring my faith in John Irving.
On Monday I was invited to speak to the local middle school cross-country team. When I give talks to kids, I usually try to use props … like one time when I brought an old phone book and tore out individual sheets to give to each runner. “Here,” I said, “Rip this in half.” Everone ripped with a vengence until there were 50 torn sheets of phone book paper fluttering in the air. “Okay,” I said, “That was easy, right? Try tearing this in half.” I then passed around the thick phone book. Several of the older boys gave it a good effort, grunting and turning red, trying - trrryyyyyiing - with all their 8th grade might to rip the thing. Impossible.
SO, my point was, if you run as a bunch of individuals, it’s easy for a team to beat you in cross-country (like ripping the one sheet in half)… but if you run as a pack, your strength multiplies exponentially. You can’t beat the phonebook. “Be the phonebook,” I urged. I heard, later, that the team still chants, “Be the phonebook!” (perhaps in jest?) and I gave that talk several years ago.
My most recent talk was about moving from “I love to run” … to “I love to race” … to ” I love to win.” How do you get from point A to point C? Training. I quoted Mihaly Igloi, “Every day hard training must make.” And then, to illustrate this point, I brought in a tupperware container with a pint of cream. “The cream is you as someone who, simply, loves to run,” I said as I poured the cream into the tupperware and then sealed it shut. The container had the words, “Every day hard training must make,” written on it. I passed the tupperware around and had everyone on the team shake it for all it was worth! After 5-7 minutes of vigorous, non-stop shaking [”hard training”] we opened the container to find the cream totally transformed into butter. “You, too, will be completely transformed into racers and winners if you train hard,” I concluded.
Inside the container, the solid yellow butter was separated from the skim whey milk and one of kids yelled out, “Hey, that’s our sweat!”
They GOT it.
