So what?

I fully admit that I monitor the Feedjit app that's on the side of this page.  Hey, a guy needs to know if his readership has increased to double digits yet or not. (Doubtful).  I know who most of the regulars are from Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Washington.  There's one in Michigan I'm not sure on but I could make an educated guess about it.  I no longer have that one guy from Finland who was showing up pretty frequently for about a month.  I guess my posts just stopped being interesting to him.  However, about a week ago, I had a visitor from Indianapolis (not sure who, but I have a guess), who specifically was directed to one of my posts through google.  Namely, it was my post about East of Eden and timshel and achieving greatness.  I didn't think much of it, but if someone's going to see just a random post, that's one I would happily share.

The timing of this actually became pretty coincidental when AU had their Special Olympics chapel and had Carl Erskine (as in Anderson resident and former Brooklyn Dodger great Carl Erskine) give the message.  For a dude that's approaching 90 with a couple of world series rings, he's doing pretty well and he has a heck of a lot more general life experience than I do. His message was on the same topic, albeit much better spoken.  His main topic was "So what?" From all of the things from his life, what was it that truly had meaning and made a difference.  He brought this up as his youngest son has Down's Syndrome and he compared the increasing acceptance of handicapped athletes to watching how Jackie Robinson and non-whites in general were eventually accepted in MLB.  With this though, he reminded us that people aren't going to remember what you did or what you said, but they'll remember exactly how you made them feel.  That got me to thinking about how I'll be remembered, which isn't something a 33 year old really worries about too much.  On that day, I wasn't really sure. I've had a few students come back and tell me good things, but self doubt always creeps in a little bit during the rough patches.  Yesterday though, I got to celebrate my birthday with my family and Lindsey and just being around people like that that love me dearly was enough to put those doubts back for a while.  It was a good day all around.

Also, a quick update on my goals.  So far, no epic life moments yet, but the half dome permit lottery opens tomorrow so cross your fingers for me.  Pushups and pullups are going pathetically.  I'll finish February doing less than half of what I should have for the month so I'm even further behind.  Running was going well until I tweaked my ankle last week.  I was able to get out this morning and knock out four miles so hopefully I can get back on track fairly quickly.  The 10 days off though probably cost me about 30 miles.