Pure.

Hi folks. It's been a while.

There are a lot of things on my mind, which is typical, and stressful.  This evening I was researching my "life," a ritual I find myself falling into every Sunday.  Should I live in Colorado? What job suits me best?  That kind of stuff.  Anyway, in the process of analyzing the best cycling routes in the Rockies, the song Jupiter, from The Planets, happened to randomly play.

Are you aware of the things in your life that put you into a trance?  Watching perfectly breaking waves puts my life on "pause."  And so did this song when the melody hummed through my headphones.  What an incredible feeling.

I need to find more of these things.





--Schmidty

The Simple Inch

In the movie "Any Given Sunday," Al Pacino gives an inspirational speech about how football is a game of inches--that in order to be successful, one has to sacrifice for the greater good of the team.  Watch the video here:

Inches Speech

What I especially appreciate about this clip is its relevance to everyone in life, not just football players and other athletes.  He claims that inch by inch we can improve ourselves. I would like to add that inch by inch and minute by minute we can also help others improve.  And this might just make all the difference.

Too often we read about how someone escaped major catastrophe by mere inches or one more minute would have resulted in disaster.  Let's spin this in a positive light:  An extra minute spent with a friend could lead to a life-long bond.  Or answering one more question from an admirer could help them uncover their true passion.  There are a million examples:  holding a door open for an extra second could change the complexion of someone's day just as helping someone change a flat tire on the side of the road.

Most of you have probably seen the commercial that takes place in a busy city where a good deed is witnessed and subsequently passed on.  And most of you are probably familiar with the cliche "a little bit goes a long way."  I'm just not sure we realize how true this statement is, however. Typically we move throughout our day at the speed of light allowing little buffer between meetings, practices and other obligations.  To set a schedule this way eliminates any opportunity for improvisation and drastically reduces the odds (no scientific proof) of us taking "extra" time to spend with a friend, colleague or stranger. Extra time that could make a world of difference, literally and figuratively speaking.

We are all on the same team on this planet, like it or not.  Our success, as Pacino claims, will be determined by our willingness to go an extra "inch" and as I have discussed, to spend an extra "minute" helping others.  It's that simple.




--Schmidty

Get it on paper.

I have a few passions/obsessions in life, one of which is making lists.  At some point I will share some of my other passions in more detail, but I don't want to get off topic here...Today, I found a list scribbled in green pen in the back of a book I finished reading more than 2 years ago. It made me laugh and then almost cry--As I read through it, I remembered the emotions I was feeling back then.  This will sound terribly corny, but lists are my personal poetry--when and how they are written are equally as expressive as the topic being pondered.

What is your form of expression?  Music, travel, writing, exercise?

Here's a (short) list of some of my favorite things:

--IPA's
--Dogs
--Trail Running
--Bodyboarding
--My Family
--Flip-flops
--The silence on a warm summer evening.
--Fall Rain.


It's incredible how therapeutic writing lists can be.  In fact, this post would have been completed 5 minutes sooner if I hadn't started daydreaming about the Fall.



--Schmidty