Day Thirteen is Awake, 53 Still Sleeping

Today I stepped up my eight mile route by jogging some of it, including the first mile. I just hope I can move in the morning!! But I must persevere if I am to eventually do 13.1 miles in 2 1/2 hours. I also "Curve-d", played golf this afternoon, and made one more (and hopefully last) trip to Home Depot for twenty more bricks. It looks like a Tylenol night!

I played my fourth round of golf today. I had five good shots, and 500 less than stellar ones. I even considered calling it quits after three holes. But I kept going, mainly because of this blog. I wanted to claim my fourth round, so I continued to swing away, and away, and away. Eventually, a few holes later, my shots improved - a tiny bit.

I have eight goals that I want to achieve in order to make changes in my life. But I am finding that I am changing in other ways. One of these changes is the drive to keep going even when there seems to be no reason to continue. I certainly could have quit golf today, and just ridden around with Steve. But I had a goal to reach. To reach that goal, I decided to stick with the process even if it meant taking 90 shots a hole, watching the balls fly in every direction, and wondering which I could send further - the ball or my golf club. By sticking with golf, I relaxed, and my golf game settled down. Now when I want to quit something, I will try to keep going, and look for a greater goal that will be gained in the activity. Today my golf game was not fabulous, but my completion of a goal progressed. And in the end, I enjoyed playing golf.

Someone mentioned to me today that perhaps my blog didn't reflect real life (he hasn't read it), that maybe it was just about good things. Maybe it is. I could instead keep a list of all the crappy things that happen every day, and write about them, but why waste time on the lousy things? I once tried to concentrate on the bad stuff, and to answer a friend, "It wasn't working for me." Instead, I'm going to choose to focus on the good things. I've discovered that by emphasizing the good, the bad gets diminished in the process. It doesn't go away, or get ignored, but instead it is used for good.

So was there any bad today? You decide. My golfing was abysmal, but I kept going and the outing as a whole turned out pleasant. My legs were aching and I was sweaty after jogging part of eight miles, but my time was much better. My hands are scraped and sore from loading and unloading eighty concrete bricks, but my sidewalk is almost lined and it looks good. Tomorrow I may wake up sore due to a lot of physical exertion, but maybe my weight and sizes are on their way down.

Optimistic or realistic? I prefer realistic because I don't ignore the difficulties of life, I just use them to make my life meaningful. I know I need both the good and the bad in life to make it real. I'm not sure if every bad situation can be used for good, but if I can make it work in the seemingly insignificant situations, then maybe I can cope with the big problems when they arise.

Today everything wasn't great or perfect or wonderful. Today was today with its ups and downs. But at the end of the day, I can look at the day as a whole and see how it all worked together. And in its totality, today was a good day.