Living the Dream

 When I was young, I was worried about how I would support myself. So when I went to college, I picked a career which had guaranteed employment. And I stuck it out more or less for the next 38 years. I moved around employers for various reasons, which kept me from being too bored or hateful of the men I worked with. I lived in a monastery for nearly 4 years, but ended up back in my career. I fit my life interests into the early morning hours, often rising at 3:15 am, or on the weekends. I never had more than 3 weeks of vacation.

But the career did its job from a financial perspective. I saved the money and got out at the earliest opportunity for financial self sufficiency.

My biggest lifetime dream was not to hike the Appalachian Trail. My dream was to continue to grow my intellect. The dream was to be a scholar and an athlete. I've always been an athlete. When I left my career, it was specifically to become a writer and fulfill the scholar part of the dream. I have done much writing and produced one body of material which could be a book, but I lack the writing muscles to get the book to the next level of development. My brain just doesn't know how to do the next parts, and so shuts down.

Through a strange and convoluted path, I applied to be a student at a local community college. I thought I was doing it to take prerequisite courses for a practical certificate in a medical specialty. This interest in this certificate had only occurred to me 4 days earlier and now I was already carrying out the idea. But after the application was submitted, I laid awake that night being pissed off over some administrative detail. I realized that continuing on this path would fill my life with administrative idiocy which would continually piss me off. 

The next morning, doing my usual meditation and journaling, I looked at that thick and difficult philosophy book sitting on the table in front of me. I really want to read that book. If I decided on this new career, that book would never get read. I'd be studying biochemistry and physiology instead. I would need to devote myself totally for at least 2.5 years to complete the certificate courses. 

I went for a run. The thought entered my head, "now that you have entered this college, you can take whatever classes you want." Wait a minute. Oooohhh! Wow! What an incredible thought. I didn't want to take any of the prerequisite courses. The college had many courses on English composition which I sorely needed if I was ever to get my writing act together. 

What if my spiritual guidance system had used this medical career path as the means to get me to apply to college? I don't think I would have done it had it been suggested straight forwardly.

I stood at a cross roads. A decision was to be made. Should I take the prerequisite courses and shove my life down a completely different, possibly annoying, medical career path? Or should I take English and achieve the goal of writing a book, which I had diligently worked on for the past 3 years? Throw away what I really wanted? I found myself interested in the English composition courses. When my acceptance letter came through on Monday, it took me about 30 minutes to enroll in an English class and pay for it. I felt amazingly wonderful and over-joyed about getting this done. 

I am now a college student. It fulfills my dream for my life. I always imagined that I would go back to school at some point and take courses which were interesting to me but which didn't provide lucrative careers. I am living my dream. I even joked about this with my Starbucks partners: athlete, writer, barista. Isn't that THE romantic notion of life that everyone wishes they could pull off?

I am living the dream.

Keep Breathing - 2020

 Last week was focused on my 35th sobriety anniversary. 8/8/85 is my sobriety date.

I love being sober and I cherish my sober adult life. I love the fellowship of AA. It is a spiritual fellowship offering unending spiritual growth and conscious contact with a power greater than myself. Alot of people weren't even born in 1985. It gives people pause when they ask about my shirt and what 1985 means. I got sober in the last century.

I have a friend who makes masks. She made me some coffee masks to go with my job at Starbucks:

Speaking of Starbucks, I finally got my manager to move me to the afternoon shift. Yay! No more getting up at 3 am more than once a week. Actually, Starbucks may have outlived it's usefulness to me. Moving to afternoons may be a temporary measure. Quitting is inevitable as my personal wealth continues to expand and the health insurance game becomes less necessary.

What interests me the most today? Coincidence x 3? Part 1 of this coincidence: COVID is a respiratory disease. One thing I became aware of a few days ago at work was that I was breathing through my mouth more when wearing a mask, especially when stressed during a rush. Don't do it. Keep that mouth closed and force yourself to breath through your nose. Do this consciously. Ensure your respiratory health by breathing through your nose. Part 2 of this coincidence: I started reading a book called "Breath" by James Nestor. Very interesting the health and longevity proposals related to breathing. And then, part 3 of this coincidence: My hero Courtney Dauwalter had to end her attempt at an FKT (fastest known time) of the 500 mile Colorado Trail due to acute bronchitis. She ended up in the ER on low oxygen. Yipes! I cried. Too much dry dusty air through the mouth. 

Something about breathing. Everybody, take a long deep breath in, hold for a beat or two, the long slow breath out. All the way in and all the way out. Just like sex. Don't hold back. Feel better? I do.

Fauci 2020

You heard the news right? The President of the United States is jealous of Dr Fauci. Why? Because Fauci was invited to throw out a first pitch and the president wasn't.

Lets pause a moment and reflect.

The president is jealous of Dr Fauci. Not because of the pitch, but because of the character of Dr Fauci. Dr Fauci got invited to throw out the first pitch because of his integrity. He has so much integrity, he can't be bullied by anyone like Trump. He has so much integrity that he can't be hidden in a corner, sued, purchased, threatened with his job. Nothing. Dr Fauci is untouchable.

Dr Fauci's integrity is something money can't buy. All of Trump's billions can't buy him integrity. Of course, integrity is essentially free. Anyone who wants it can have it. Trump doesn't want integrity but he wants the admiration which Dr Fauci has achieved honor and fame by doing the opposite of trying. Honestly, he is just doing his job. If only the president of the United States would do his job.

You realize that many many people in our country are like Dr Fauci. They have integrity. We have integrity. We can't be bought. Living an integral life is richness beyond belief. Power beyond belief. 

Retirement Appreciation

In March of 2018, I sent the following paragraph of resignation to my then corporate management:

"I will terminate my employment on  September 10, 2018 to pursue a more rewarding lifestyle. The technical content of my job, for which I show an aptitude and enjoyment, has diminished; replaced by an increase in administrative duties for which I am unsuited and which are of little interest. The performance system does not reward my technical competency. There is time wasted in this job in circular arguments, writing unread reports, performing extra work due to under-functioning and poorly trained colleagues; and my time is more valuable to me than to spend it doing this. I only have one life and I want to do something more productive with it."

I began my journey into Phase 3 of my life. Financially, the project is successful. I have more money than ever. But what about emotionally? What about finding a more rewarding life style or being more productive with my life?

Existential questions for sure. 

Over all, my emotional condition is very much improved. 

Rewarding lifestyle. Any life not spent in front of a computer doing paperwork for a corporation is an improvement. I don't have a TV so I don't sit on the couch. I love the forests which I have around me. I love doing miles. I love being an athlete.

Productivity: I left my career with the idea of completing a book. I left Texas with a large portion of content hand written. I was successful over the past two years in completing the  technical content of the book, 171 pages of it. Recently, I got the creative idea on how to shape the book into a work of fiction which many people would enjoy reading. I see another two years working on re-shaping the original book. Ever since I got that fiction idea, new paragraphs have been pouring out of me and I am having fun writing.

Productivity: Just being. Loving yourself just because you exist, not because of what you have to show for it. That is me, most of the time. Simplicity and essentialism feel good to me. I love life with less distractions for the purpose of connecting with my soul. I have focused on "just being" as a goal for many years. I hoped for it from my monastic life. I clung to is after my monastic life. The corona shut down brought it to me. It continues.

50k Endeavor

I signed up for another virtual race. This one consists of four distances, and if you do all four, your get a buckle. The longest distance was 50k. I did that today. It was an ordeal. For those of you that don't know, 50k is 31 miles, but I did 31.46 miles.

I started off at 4:00 am. It was a delightful morning, but I knew it was going to heat up. I wore the bib provided by the race, just to feel and look like I was in a race.

I ran the first 20.3 miles along bike paths near my house. They went really well due to coolish temperatures during the night and a small amount of cloud cover until 8:30 or so. I included the bike path in Hodge Park which goes north to south across the park. The first time I went across the park, no one was in the parking lot near the golf course start. The second time, about 50 men were there, some at the driving range. Some at the putting greens and many many waiting in carts. There was a veritable traffic jam of golf carts. I was not impressed by the golf scenery. 

After the first 20 miles, I took a pit stop at my house. It was by then getting hot and my feet felt like they had just run 20 miles. I battled with thoughts of quitting (its just a virtual race, who cares what you do), but somehow, I made it back out the door (I would know whether I quit or cheated and feel bad about myself). This time, I drove 2 miles to a park that had some trees, planning to do the rest of the 50k in the shade. I did it, but it did get hot, even in the shade. The last 5 miles, I only walked. 

It was exciting to see those last few miles get done and my Garmin slowly make its way to 31 miles. Especially since my brain was devising various ways of cheating. The honest finishing is so much sweeter when you realize how much your brain was working against you. But doing it was awesome. I did it!!

(I complain about the heat, but really, Missouri is not at all hot like Houston area where I used to live. )

I thought alot about this blogger named of Dixie of Homemade Wanderlust. She hiked the AT, the CDT, the PCT and a trail in Spain. I relate to her because she was an engineer who escaped her cubicle. I so appreciate that I am not in a cubicle, sitting at a computer all day. I had the courage to say, "this is enough money," and get out. 

I'm saving up all the virtual race swag I've been getting and making a little shrine to 2020 on a wall in my house. Four events done so far, and at least two more which I've signed up for, but they haven't started.

Unabashedly Awesome

Today I had an awesome 13.2 mile jog. The possibility was brought to me by clouds. Clouds kept the temperature down for most of the run. I didn't get started until 9 am, pretty late since it is summer and headed to 90F today. I slept until 8 am was the reason for the late start. I don't know why I needed 10 hours of sleep last night, but I got it.

Unabashedly Awesome?

I spent nearly this entire run thinking about both the 50k I plan to run on Monday, and the many years of running I have still to come. Being 61, it is unabashedly awesome to still be running. When I was a teenager, women didn't run marathons at all let alone 60yo. Remember those picture of women dragging their selves across finish lines, until Joan Benoit Samuelson came dancing across the finish line in an Olympic marathon. After that, it was game on. Now, more than 40 years later, it is still game on for me.

I am excited about Monday. Today I figured out a plan to get 7 plus hours of running into a single run. I decided to leave the house at 3:45 and drive to a nearby park. Park there and then run 9 or 10 miles home. Pit stop and refuel. Run 9 miles back to my car. Refuel, run on a park bike path/ trail while refueling for the balance of the run. 

As a runner, I'm unabashedly awesome, but as a human, my life is unabashedly awesome. My life has expanded into dimensions of good feelings which I hadn't felt before. I feel so good. Why? Spiritual processes. I do my spiritual processes.

I Got the Buckle

I virtually ran across the state of Tennessee. 635 miles.  got this buckle:

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