Skip to main content

Forward


There is a book I love, To Be a Runner, by Martin Dugard. In the book, he described one of his life mottos, Keep Pushing...Always. He wrote,

"It is a pursuit of that best possible version of ourselves, refusing to accept mediocrity, and waking up each day full of hope instead of fear. It’s having courage, taking a risk, staying focused on the important things in life. And it’s remembering that courage is not the absence of fear but the ability to press forward despite your fears" (152).

When I was a teenager, my family traveled to a family resort on a small lake in Bellaire, Michigan. The weeks spent in Bellaire were some of the best weeks of my teenage life. We spent time with the same families year after year and participated in a variety of water sports. We even ate dinner together. The resort was similar to summer camp, but this was for families. The resort had a long-standing tradition of allowing vacationers to swim back across the lake (1.5 miles). It was a daunting task. I was determined to do it, and a few of us jumped into the water, with youthful confidence, that we would make it. I remember my dad and mom (they were in a boat) asking if I wanted to stop. My mom told me later that she knew there was no way I would quit, and that was exactly what concerned her. Honestly, I already felt the fatigue, and I knew it was going to be difficult. However, to me, there was only one option, keep going. I alternated strokes every few minutes, steadily moving forward. The swim felt like an eternity. The shoreline never seemed to get closer. But, there was no way I would quit. I absolutely had to make it. Honestly, I can’t remember a whole lot about completing the swim. I was too tired to remember setting my feet on the sand. I do remember hearing people cheer, but I was so light-headed I could not walk straight. I had done it. This was probably 20 years ago, but it is still a vivid memory of a time I kept pushing myself.

Although it was just a swim, these kinds of life events show us the best version of ourselves despite all odds. It truly gives us the courage to get out of bed filled with hope and to know that we can handle more than we give ourselves credit for. It allows us to see that we can face tragedies, and we can keep putting one foot in front of the other. Martin Dugard went on to write,

“No matter how hard the pace or how high the hill, you will endure. Every struggle comes to an end if you just keep pushing forward” (94).


We press on.

Comments

  1. Rama JanamanchiSeptember 19, 2018 at 12:41 PM

    Your determination is really inspirational. It's an example of why we need to dream big and then give our all towards achieving that dream.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousSeptember 24, 2018 at 11:54 AM

    i love to book to how people jucie before they now you

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Learning to Grow

Sometimes being vulnerable and taking a risk in front of our students is the best thing educators can do. I have decided to go on a writing journey with my students through the use of this blog. They each have a blog, and we will all post a weekly blog to tell stories, communicate ideas, make arguments, and expand our horizons. One of the questions I ask myself on a daily basis is, how can I make myself better today? No, I’m not upset with who I am as a husband, father, teacher, and friend, but it’s about being the best that I can be. It’s about embracing the process, working doggedly toward our goals and our passions and developing strong relationships along the way. My students and I will share our passions, goals, successes, and failures through our blogs. We will continue to work toward developing higher character, which means demonstrating more kindness, more gratitude, and more persistence. We will work toward developing these qualities while chasing our passions and develo...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Need to Recognize Our Strengths

How many of you wake up every day and think about what your strengths are?   Not a single hand went up when I asked this question during class yesterday.  Full disclosure, my hand would have remained down as well.  The assignment began with me asking the students what their strengths were, not just academically but in general.  This proved to be a difficult task for some, and when the students asked me to disclose my strengths, I then began to empathize with the difficulty of the assignment.   Why is it so difficult to identify and discuss our strengths?  Maybe it is because we are too busy worrying about everything that could go wrong in our day, the stresses we have, our comparisons to others, or maybe it just seems too vain to point out the great things about ourselves.  Although the lesson began slowly, students began to think outside the box and feel good about the strengths they were writing down on paper.  Then came the sharing, and ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Using Summer and Family to Recharge and Reflect

One of the really great benefits of being a teacher is having the ability to have the summer off to grow professionally, spend time with family, and to relax and recharge for the following school year.  While I absolutely love my job as an educator at Lawrence school, it is necessary to have that time to reflect, play, and grow personally and professionally.  This past summer was filled with opportunities to do just that.   Let’s start at the beginning.  Our first order of business was to take a trip across the country to Colorado to visit friends and then on to Phoenix, Arizona to visit family.  If you have ever traveled with very young children on an airplane, you can empathize with the challenges of packing, escorting, and most importantly feeding everyone along the way.  A hungry 3-year-old is a hangry 3-year-old.  I think some adults can relate as well.  Once we got past the logistics of traveling, we were off on a great advent...
2 comments
Read more