Tough times...

It's easy to ask, "Why did this happen?" or worse "Why does this keep happening?".

It's easy to get mad. Blame others, blame God maybe. Whether it's a big tragedy or a ton of little problems that add up and hit you like 12 gauge buckshot often times the easiest thing to do is play the victim and point fingers when maybe what we should be doing is learning about ourselves and looking internally.

Have you ever learned anything about yourself on a perfectly sunny day? For me these days are blue-bird ski days, with no traffic or lift lines - usually found in Aspen-Snowmass (shh, don't tell). Awesome Saturdays with my wife riding bikes around to breweries in Fort Collins, or going home for holidays and not worrying about anything, literally, you can sit on the couch and read, fully focused on turning pages not really caring about anything else.  Nope, I have never learned anything about myself on those days...except maybe that I like them a lot and wish there were more days like that.

The truth is we need tough times, dark times, rough times, to shape us into who we are. Whether it's losing friends, marriage problems, money problems, job issues or just being stuck out in the woods without a compass these things cause us learn what's below the surface of ourselves. Sometimes that makes those tough times even harder to deal with because we don't like what comes out. To be honest, I wouldn't change anything about the worst times in my life because of how much stronger and wiser I am today because of it.

There's this book called The Journey of Desire written by a Christian climber from Boulder, CO that opened my eyes to a new thought. Basically this whole life is shaping us for who we're meant to be in the eternal lives ahead of us. We're these rough blocks of wood being shaped by the gritty sandpaper of the world. Question is are you going to just let yourself get all scratched up, scarred and haggard or are you going to learn from these tough times and be shaped into who you were meant to be - something incredibly unique and beautiful.

Cross Fit was actually fun!

Workout today was awesome. Usually I tear major muscles and it takes a week to recover, or really a week to walk right again leaving one conclusion - cross fit sucks. Or so I thought, this workout may have changed my mind because I feel amazing.


Warm up:
- Run the hill outside 3x
- Walking lunge up the hill once
- Back inside, 5 sit-ups, push ups and air squats
Partner Workout - Fair teams, each team has to have each person do this:
 
- Run to the corner of Cascade and 34 (250 yds one-way) with 30 - 45 lb weight
- Back inside: 3 rounds, 10 hand release push-ups, 10 weighted situps (use same weight db for each team), and 10 jumping air squats.
- Run to the corner of Cascade and 34 again with same weight.
Time is the total team time for all athletes to complete. Our time was 11 min.

Topped it off with a nice helping of squats. 
6 rounds

As many squats as possible in 20 seconds  
Rest for 10 seconds in full squat position
Averaged 13 squats per round 

Of course this was also "fun" as well...

Nothing safer than Vail on a powder day.

Inspiration.

Inspire others and you'll inspire yourself...But I wish inspiration came in a can, or there was a recipe, a quick, easy solution and it tasted like ice cream. I guess that's the society we live in, everything that's worth it should be simple and incredibly rewarding with little or no work, and be really fattening. I'm picturing Dwight Schrute saying, "False, hard work is the only way to good beets." The thing is I love working hard, especially for things I love (or good beets). Why is it so hard to get motivated to do the things I love? (side note: Is it just me that feels like 99% of life is in the gray area and never black and white?) I feel like I've wired myself to generate as many excuses as it takes in order to stifle and kill any motivation I get for getting out and climbing, riding, skiing or just doing things that I know I love doing! I'll watch a bike movie and get to where my helmet is and quickly find myself watching mindless tv. I'll watch ski movies all week and when the weekend comes, "Meh, there's still not enough snow to make the drive worth it." Goodness sakes I live 15 min. from some of the nation's best bouldering, I've been twice this year. I don't get it, so I'm psychologically evaluating myself and writing this in order to maybe find an answer that will get me off this couch back to living the good life God intended us to live.

So how does inspiration spark motivation?
Inspiration: The process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, esp. to do something
creative: "flashes of inspiration". 
Motivation: The general desire or willingness of someone to do something.

I guess I see inspiration as a flint and steel for the fire of motivation. To continue with the poor metaphor it seems like I can never find the flint or somebody just doused my would-be fire. I think inspiration has to match up with your motivation as well. Seeing an amazing photo of a mountain biker has not worked to get me out riding! It works to get my wife excited about taking photos. But only wrapping your hands around the grips and turning the cranks can actually inspire me to keep doing what I love. 

I can blame youtube, vimeo, twitter, facebook and all the typical time leeches but I think it's more than that. Or maybe not, maybe a good test would be to drop those things for 30 days and see what happens. Yes, that's it! Living in the marketing world I'm all about a/b testing so my A was trying to get out and get motivated using things like the above mentioned social networks. B will be the next 30 days of social network and couch abstinence (ok, maybe not completely off the social because of work, just not at home) I will find my inspiration in pushing further doing the things I love instead of watching people do the things I love.

Day 1 Starts Tomorrow.