Comfortably Numb

Why are we great STARTERS?

But lousy FINISHERS?

Great at dreaming?

Poor at executing?

Whether it's completing a diet, finishing a college degree, saving for retirement, or implementing a big project at work.

Why is it so hard to make big dreams like these actually HAPPEN?

I have a theory.

It's not that our life is too HARD.

It's that life is too easy...too COMFORTABLE.

Change--real change--requires a REASON for change.

A big, hairy and UNCOMFORTABLE reason.

Uncomfortable enough to get us off the couch, away from the refrigerator, out of the meeting and dreaming rooms and catapult us into ACTION.

Action that is consistent and resilient to keep us going when complacency creeps back in to stop our forward motion.

To paraphrase the Pink Floyd song, I think we have become "comfortably numb."

We're not happy with our jobs, our training, our weight, our finances and countless other things...

But we're not UN-happy enough to take action.

We are comfortably numb in mediocrity. 

But here is the rub....

By staying comfortably numb,  we tell ourselves that we may not be moving forward but at least we're not moving BACKWARDS.

But that would be wrong.

Being comfortably numb causes us do something far worse than make the conscious, and perhaps heroic, decision to quit.

It enables us to make the cowardly "non-decision" of INACTION.

To drift away...

To go out with a whisper...

So I say it's time for ACTION.

In our training, in our work, in our homes and in everything else we hold dear.

Let's stop being "comfortably numb."

And start playing a different tune.

AMJ

The Last Two Miles

In marathon training, it is the last two miles that always hurt the most.

Always.

It's the marathon's way of forcing us--each week--to assess how bad we really want it.

It's also the marathon's way of teaching our bodies and minds a lesson.

A lesson that says, "I know it hurts, but if you run through this...I'll let you run FARTHER next week."

This teacher DOESN'T let you cheat.

And she doesn't grade on a curve.

I used to hate the last two miles of my long runs when I trained for my first marathon.

But now I know better.

Because now I know that it's the last two miles of those long runs where we grow the most..

Our muscles, our bones...our minds.

They learn to take the pain---and keep going.

A 12-mile run where the last 2 miles burns is no Mardi Gras.

But it prepares us for the 13-miler next week.

And 14 miles the following week.

So we're ready for 26.2.

But only if we learn to push through ...the last two miles.

Every week.

I think pushing through and growing from the last two miles is a metaphor for life.

The student that earns the "A" in his accounting class from studying that extra hour each week.

The salesman that became the TOP salesman from staying a little late each night to make those few extra cold calls.

The school teacher that becomes a GREAT teacher by taking the extra half-hour after school to prepare for tomorrow's lesson.

You see,  going from good to GREAT seldom involves doubling our efforts and pain.

It's not about going extra BIG miles.

It's about going extra SMALL miles.

The last two miles.

AMJ