The photo in today's blog is not just another goofy mug (head) shot of me. It's a photo to sort of prove I did what I said I did today for today's activity. It's day 4 of 30 Days of Yes and if you just started reading the blog for the first time, no worries, my blog is not like having to keep up with LOST. The blogs are easy to go back and read or if you'd rather just jump right in that's easy too.
My activity today was to do something physical, like working out, hiking, biking, or running. Whatever you want to do. But the challenge was to do something you don't ordinarily do. Since I workout almost daily, the physical part would be simple but the figuring what to do different would be more difficult. What did I choose? Swimming. Okay, that's not really that big of a deal. I grew up in California, lived most of my adult life in Hawaii. I've done a lot of swimming. But how many of you can relate to forcing yourself to submerge your body into cold water. How many of you just plain give up on jumping into a cold pool or ocean? I'm raising my hand. We have an indoor pool where I live. The outdoor pool isn't open yet so the indoor pool was a nice respite from Winter time blues earlier this year. Then the heater broke. It is so cold that even my youngest son, who often begs me to go swimming, did an about face after dipping his toes in the water a couple of weekends ago. It was that memory that helped me decide this would be a good physical challenge. The picture of me is to prove in the best way I could without risking ruining my camera phone taking a picture of myself while swimming, that I did get my hair wet.
I started off the morning thinking back on the previous activities of identifying my passions, gratitude and forgiveness. Then I did a little work, setting up some story interviews for the educational channel I freelance for, and then I went to the gym to do my regular, daily physical activity before going for the challenging swim. I should add that I did push myself harder in my regular workout this morning by sprinting more in the spirit of today's activity.
Again, the challenging part was not the swim because I can do a decent 20 laps. It was the jumping in part that had me thinking about just going home.
On the way to the pool it didn't help to hear on the radio the story of Washington National's pitcher Stephen Strasburg who accidentally applied Icy Hot ointment to his private parts before the game. Needless to say it made for a very uncomfortable and painful evening on the mound. So, was that the feeling I was in for when submerging the lower half of my body into an icy pool? Do I really have to do this? I worked out already, I did something physical. I will just write about that. No, I had to do this. I got to the pool, took off my shoes and shirt and slowly lowered myself into to a pool that was even colder than I remembered. There was a woman, only separated by glass, on a treadmill with a perfect view of me either swimming or wimping out. It's like when you realize you are walking the wrong way and you don't want to turn back around in the opposite direction because people will wonder why you are doing a pirouette in the middle of the sidewalk. I could not turn around or that one witness would think how silly (or creepy) it was to see a grown man take off his shirt to bathe his toes in an indoor pool for just a couple of minutes. I slowly took the challenge. I got in waste deep, lost my breath and nearly my heart. After a few minutes I jumped the rest of the way in. It was still cold but it got better. I did about ten laps and called it a workout. In the end it felt good. It didn't feel good because it was exercise, it felt good because I did something I was hesitant about and after doing it I realized that it was a better feeling to actually do it than the feeling I had about not wanting to do it. So what did I learn from today's activity? Just jump in. Jumping in the pool this morning was like jumping into life. There are a lot of things we don't do because we either don't want to out of laziness or don't do because we have fear or doubt about it. Nike says "Just Do It!" I say "Just Jump In!"
Tomorrow's 30 Days of Yes is kind of a big deal.
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