Burpees as a metaphor for life: (in Haiku)
The Optimist
Fall down on the ground. Reach the bottom, Rise again. A small jump: triumph.
The Pessimist
Fall down on the ground. Reach the bottom, rise again. Jump. Joy. Down again.
"The summit is what drives us, but the climb itself is what matters." Conrad Anker
At the end of 2018 my husband decided we needed a new goal. So we signed up for our 3rd marathon. He talked me into it by making it a destination race (Burlington Vermont) and I was in. But then we started talking about burpees. And one of us (I think it was me), said what if we do one more burpee every day of 2019. We were in pretty good shape but as we thought through the process, we thought "wow, imagine doing 50 burpees. How long would that take? How about 100? 300? Now we are talking crazy talk. I thought about my 12 hour shifts at the hospital and how would I do burpees before or after that? But I said, let's just start and see how long it lasts. Our initial goal was to make it to 50. We gave ourselves the day off in advance for the day we ran our marathon. And we were off. I started getting up 30 minutes early on days I worked. We got to 50, then to 100, 150. We trained for our marathon. We kept going with burpees. All of our old leg/hip injuries had revisited us during our marathon training but we persisted. Neither of us broke any records (not even our own). But we ran the race. We each learned something more about ourselves, as every marathon is a teacher. And we had a fun weekend in Vermont.
We kept at it with the burpees too. I started getting neck pain in September during a weekend biking trip. We persisted. Finally, at day 343, we decided for real that we had crossed too far over the line between mental toughness and stupidity. We did complete the requisite 66,795 burpees, but not by 12/31/19. It took us until May, 2020. In the meantime there were steroid injections in my neck, physical therapy and some rest. And I wrote my first poems.
I share this story to give you a sense of the value my husband and I place on working hard to achieve goals. It doesn't matter what the goal is..."It's not the thing you fling, it's the fling itself." Northern Exposure season 3 episode 14.
This past summer, my 3 children, my husband and I decided to start a family book club/podcast club. My husband chose the book "Grit" by Angela Duckworth from U Penn. We both enjoyed it and were pleased to see we scored high on the "Are you a gritty parent?" checklist. We felt we had served our children well. Set a goal, focus, work hard, believe...don't quit in the middle of a season. Persevere. Set realistic goals, smart goals, establish a support system. Success will happen if you bring passion and discipline to the task.
To our surprise, our children were not so happy with the message of this book. They did not value grit as highly as other things, like self care for example. I must admit, I felt a little twinge of the "these kids, don't know how to work hard" sentiment, and I do worry that self care can degenerate to self indulgence, and not include self sacrifice. At the same time, I remembered the conscious decision that my husband and I made all those years ago to not work full time; To find jobs doing what we enjoyed, jobs that gave back to others and committing ourselves to them, but not completely. We were parents and our children needed us. We were dog parents too and we did not want any creature consigned to sitting on the couch or at daycare waiting for us. We wanted to be with each other. My goal was always that my husband and I would be able to have lunch together. Ironically, this was only achieved during the current pandemic... In any case, we had our priorities and we tried to be true to them and they weren't all about being the best, going the farthest etc. They were about valuing our relationship. But we did both go through demanding graduate/professional programs and we do value setting goals and working to meet them, and we enjoy physical challenges as a way to strengthen our bodies and minds.
Back to the present, the fascinating thing about these family talks was the continued realization that our children have absorbed our shared experiences differently than we did, and they also had many experiences at schools, clubs, with friends, without us, and they shaped them too. We are also all at different places in our lives, and they are all now adults. I have to respect that they each have their own way of seeing the world, their own priorities. I started thinking about the reality of a "generation gap." I don't want to be the curmudgeon I often feel I am becoming so I try very hard to listen and to not be entrenched in my own ways of thinking. Grit is fine, they said, but not for its' own sake. And who needs to be the "best" at anything/everything? They had less focus on being "gritty" and more focus on being kind to themselves, valuing relationships, exploring how other's experienced the world and embracing tolerance.
One of our next books was "This book will make you Kinder" by Henry Garrett. Another book was "Non Binary: Memoirs of Gender and Identity" which I spoke about in my first post. I had them read "Our Homesick Songs" by Emma Hooper. There is alot of analysis and alot of broadening of categories and creating new ones, that my children embrace. There is a whole lot more comfort with discussions about diversity and a willingness to start to delve into other once more taboo subjects.
I think the progression from the competitive mind set to the tolerant, kind, inclusive mindset is a constructive way for the world to move. I appreciate my children giving me a different way to see things, and of reminding me about what I already value. I hope to keep learning. God knows we don't have all the answers. And we have turned a blind eye to many things we should have been paying attention to. Our chickens our coming home to roost as our climate rushes towards inhabitability, as our population crowds out our own resources, never mind the rest of the creatures on our planet. We have allowed Jim Crow to persist as we rush towards our own goals. We have ignored the inability of others to have goals beyond getting through the day.
I know there are people of my generation, and those of prior generations, who have been more aware and done a great deal of work for social justice and to care for our environment. I am speaking for myself when I say I have not done enough.
I'd like to end by honoring one of my favorite authors who died on Christmas day. I came late to the work of Barry Lopez but he had a life full of travel, immersion and observation. He reflected and shared his vision of the world and all of its' inhabitants with humility and kindness. His wisdom shines through in his many works of non fiction and fiction. He is probably known best for "Arctic Dreams" and more recently "Horizon." I feel so grateful that I found his work. I wrote to him last year after reading Horizon. A year later I got a type written postcard from him, a simple note thanking me for my letter. He had read it last year, and reread it this year. I was so pleased that we had made this small connection. I wrote again after I started this blog, since I quote him so frequently. It was then I found out that his home in Oregon had been damaged in one of the many wildfires that are a consequence of our climate changing. Then I read on the 26th that he had succumbed to his cancer the day before. I don't know if he got my most recent note. I didn't know him, but I miss his voice already. It is a voice sorely needed in this world and I encourage anyone reading this to explore his work. He is far wiser than I.
I still miss Tom Petty too. It's been a few years since his sudden death. I never knew him,
or connected with him, except through his music. I don't even know why his loss seems so raw to me.
But it does. So I just want to take a moment to remember Mr. Lopez, Mr. Petty, and all of the people
I didn't know who are lost to us during this year of death.
2021 is fresh and new. Let's do better. Let's be kinder. Let's not forget, but let's move forward.
Peace Out.
"Grit" - Angela Duckworth 2019
"This Book will make you Kinder" - Henry Garrett 2020
"Our Homesick Songs" - Emma Hooper 2018
"On the Divinity of Second Chances" Kaya McLaren 2004
Bonus quote: "BE GOOD. BE KIND. BE HAPPY.
We do not just measure greatness by the peaks that we climb, or the heights that we reach, but rather by the positive impact that we create for ourselves, our communities, and our planet. Our goodness to each other is what makes us whole, and what endures for generations beyond our physical feats & achievements." Conrad Anker (from his website- check it out).
(I think this is what we want right?)
