Saturday, December 24, 2011

Fight for Something

A few years back our high school track team had a quote. It was just one word: Believe.

Believe. Now that word can cover a whole spectrum of different thoughts, phrases, images, and ideas. But what came to me was not "Believe in God." It was more like, "Believe in your team." But I think most importantly, "Believe in yourself."

I have a set of rules that I try to live up to every day. The first one is to believe in myself, and often I fail to do that. The next one is to challenge myself every day. Sometimes these are big challenges, and sometimes they're itty bitty smaller challenges, like trying to get myself out of bed to face the new day. A challenge is a challenge, and just like we can't treat everything the same way, we can't treat every day the same. Situations come up that make days difficult or relatively easy. Some days, you feel as if you could take on the whole world. Some days, you feel like you got kicked repeatedly in the ribs and it's not worth getting up. But it is. Trust me, getting up and trying is. You just have to believe that it is. There's that word again. 

The third rule is try to be the person I wanted to be when I wake up. That's difficult, trust me, I know. Forever the toughest critic of yourself, you have to fight your thoughts and ideas. You have to struggle with the preconceived notions that you aren't good enough and you don't belong where you are. But you do. You worked to get where you are now. And if you are in a relatively good position because of your hard work, you are worth it. And if you are in terrible, beaten down, sitting on the curb in the pouring rain position, and you want to strive to be better, than do it. The only thing that's stopping* you is you thinking you're not good enough. *Just don't hurt anyone or anything because it's not fair to them. They have their own struggles.

My fourth rule is that your brain is a muscle, exercise it as much as you exercise your body, which should be three times a week for thirty minutes, if you follow the recommendation of the medical community. This rule is similar and closely related to rule 2. Every one is different, some need more exercise to feel more accomplished while others need less to feel good and reap the benefits. Same goes for the brain. Some people have a hard time with math, others have difficulties with writing. Try it out. I have problems with numbers, so I do Sudoku's on an almost daily basis. I read, write, and draw. I don't think I'm particularly talented in some areas but I'm exercising the most important area of my brain, imagination. My imagination comes up with the monsters and heroes of dreams and reading fuels them. Drawing puts them on paper and writing gives them a story line. Try it out or find a different hobby. Exercise your noggin because there's going to be a day when you might not be as sharp as you are now.

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