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Saturday, 30 September 2023
On this day of your life
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I believe God wants you to know ... ... that less and
less do you need to force things, until you finally arrive at
non-action. This is the message
of the Tao Te Ching, and it is true. Werner Erhard
has taught, "Life will resolve itself in the
process of Life Itself." Byron Katie says that liberation is
"Loving What Is." And Stephen
Mitchell calls non-action "the purest and most effective form
of action. The game plays the game; the poem writes the
poem; we can't tell the dancer from the dance. Perhaps the best
thing you can do right now is nothing at
all. |
A Little Quote to Help Us get through the Hard Stuff.
Life-altering change is often painful, and it always comes on its own time.
But sometimes life falls out of the sky and into our lap, and the change you need comes from the most unexpected sources in the darkest of times.
One year ago this weekend my father-in-law, Andrew Gilmore, died suddenly in his home in rural Pierce County, Washington. He was 67 and had recently battled diabetes.
My wife and I were preparing to split firewood with my parents when we got the Call That Changed Everything on that Saturday morning. By that Saturday afternoon, she had booked a flight home for the next day and sent a text to her boss that she would be with her family in suburban Seattle for the next week. I would join her for a return trip in December for the memorial service. Heavy emotional times.
Andy was truly a great guy. I can’t say we were extremely close, living 3,000 miles apart, but we saw him every time we visited my mother-in-law and step-father-in-law, and I liked him a lot.
Andy was big and burly, a bus mechanic for King Country Metro and a fiercely pro-union guy. Before that he worked building the Alaska Pipeline. He could come off as a bit intimidating, but once you got past that exterior shell he was a teddy bear.
His sense of humor was wicked, and often born of exasperation.
My mother-in-law, Mary, has a penchant for malapropism (we’ve often threatened to publish a book of her greatest hits called the Mary-onary): once she was tearing the kitchen apart looking for her “spoodle” (spoon + ladle), and once she kept asking Andy if he bought “flowerkraut” at the store. After a few moments of bellowing “What in the hell are you talking about!?” (maybe not quite in those words), Andy figured out that she was asking about cauliflower.
The best came when a piece of metal has hanging off our first beater car. My wife called Andy and described the symptoms. After a few minutes of go-nowhere explanations and more and more questions, Andy lost it and yelled, “Well, Jesus Christ Andrea, hold the phone up to the car so I can figure out what you’re talking about!”
We ended up taking the car into the garage.
Andy’s death came out of nowhere, punching us in the gut with unwanted finality. But in the aftermath, sorting through his affairs, we got a clear picture of a wonderful man with a tremendous heart. Big burly mountain man, union laborer, guy who listened to ‘Zep and ‘Floyd and raced a ’63 Chevelle and rode a Honda: not much there, right? Wrong. We knew it was there, but the depth of his intellectual curiosity was truly revealed after his death.
As a result, I unexpectedly received words of wisdom to change my life.
Andrea and I flew out to Seattle for the wake in mid-December. For the service, we set up a display with a collection of Andy’s mementos: photos, old report cards, union patches, model cars and cans of Gilmore Oil, a card signed by co-workers for his retirement a mere seven months earlier.
He collected many newspaper clippings over the years, and I remember seeing them around his house. Inspirational and humorous quotes, political cartoons, POGO strips, lots of Pot-Shots by Ashleigh Brilliant. I remember standing around the table before the wake, perusing all the clips, when my eye landed on a clip that would resonate the rest of my life.
Guy with an easel leaning against a ladder, with the caption:
As I’ve written before, life falls out of the sky and into our lap.
On that day in December 2013, as I read that quote at such a horrible time, I was going through spiritual trauma far deeper than merely losing my father-in-law.
Around that time, I was searching for help in quieting my demons. I had just discovered that I carry the HSP (Highly Sensitive Person) trait, and I had also just discovered Mindfulness and Buddhist thought. I was at the beginning of my practice of these concepts, and everything was clicking, but not fully connecting yet.
Seeing that amazing quote, which was important enough to my father-in-law to save and hang on his wall, stuck, because I could plug it into my own life.
I had always had a self-check streak. I had always had the ability to accept things I didn’t like in myself and start to work on changing these things. I had always tried to make subtle changes, hoping for grand payoff later on.
I had always worked on changing the little pictures, and as a result, I could see how far I had come. Big picture.
And here was tangible confirmation that my efforts could pay off and had paid off.
I have carried that lesson which my father-in-law passed on to me every day since, and it has served as confirmation of my efforts and inspiration to continue. In a moment where the small picture of loss was all-encompassing, I received a reminder of the importance of the big picture.
And I’m working on it.
Bonus video: A simple Buddhist tip to get us through rough days.
Author: Brian Westbye
Editor: Catherine Monkman
Photo: Author’s Own, Ganeshaisis/Flickr
11 Lessons on Character from American Cyclist Sepp Kuss who Just Won the Tour of Spain.
A modern sports miracle happened last week.
An American cyclist beat the Europeans at their own game by winning the 21-day Tour of Spain (la Vuelta a España).
And that cyclist is Sepp Kuss, a 29-year-old from Durango, Colorado, who has raced for the world-dominating Jumbo Visma team for six years.
And it’s an underdog story that not even he ever saw happening.
Not only is it rare for Americans to win in this European-dominated sport, but Kuss didn’t even go there as a contender; he was just there in a support role cyclists referred to as a “domestique,” one he’s performed for six years now. And his team Jumbo Visma sports the two most dominant grand tour winners of today, two-time Tour de France champ Jonas Vingegaard and current Giro d’Italia/three-time Vuelta champ Primoz Roglic, victories made possible by Kuss’s selfless (and fast) riding in their support.
But step by step, in this 21-day Tour, it became clear that Kuss was the fittest overall rider in the field, and that it was his super-star teammates who should support him rather than the other way around.
But Kuss’s 21-stage journey to keeping the red leader’s jersey to Madrid wasn’t easy. He even had to fight off his two teammates Roglic and Vingegaard (who kept attacking him at times) along the way.
Here’s what we can learn from his nerve-wracking journey to beat the best in the world:
Don’t chase the spotlight—chase excellence
Kuss never wanted to be the guy atop the podium. He’s ridden as a “super-domestique” for six years, helping Jonas and Primoz win six grand tours. (A “domestique” is a support role where you help pace your team leader up the climbs, break the wind for them, get water bottles and food from the team car for them, and generally sacrifice your legs to support their goals.)
He’s just striven to be the fittest rider he can be, and be able to outlast any other rider in the race—other than his own team leader. But by chasing fitness this relentlessly, he ended up accidentally taking the leader’s jersey on stage eight.
Let go of the outcome
Even when Kuss got the leader’s red jersey on stage eight—something most cyclists never expect to wear even one day in their lifetime—he was reluctant to see it as “his.” In daily interviews, he said he expected to hand it over to a teammate any day, if that’s what the team decided. He never let his ego get attached to it. And maybe that’s why the jersey seemed to “want” to stay on his shoulders.
The longer you delay gratification, the sweeter it’ll be.
Kuss has been a professional since 2016, and never chased “glory,” only the satisfaction of helping his world class teammates win the biggest victories in the world. But in pursuit of that goal, he eventually became their equals, as he strove to be fit enough to help them to the finish line each day on the toughest climbs in the world. Suddenly, in this Tour, it was he who no one could keep up with.
Always compliment others before yourself
No matter how many days he kept holding onto the leader’s jersey, he insisted it wasn’t about him, it was about the team, and he’d ride for his teammates instead if that’s what the team asked. Even when it seemed his own teammates were willing to ditch him and try to ride away and “steal” the jersey off their teammate’s back, he still cheered them on, selfless to the core.
Put in your 10,000 hours.
Like most pros, Sepp has steadily put in four to five hours a day on the bike since he was in college. Multiply that times 10 years, and you get 10,000 hours pretty easily. Of absolute misery and suffering. And voila—now he’s the fittest guy in all the mountains of Europe. How fit? He’s 6 feet but only 134 lbs.
Don’t give in to fear and revenge
Multiple times, in stages 13, 16 and 17, it appeared his own teammates were still secretly riding “against” him, meaning, more for their own ambitions than to protect their team leader (which is the golden rule in cycling). But Kuss never got upset about it, even when the world wanted him to. He just said, “If I drop, I drop,” and figured, let the best man win.
The less you seek attention, the more the world will give it to you.
Kuss never wanted to hog the spotlight, always choosing to compliment his team, rather than brag about his own riding. But each day, as he continued being in the leader’s jersey, and more Spaniards adopted him as their new, humble hero, the more he just smiled and tried to accept it with grace.
Be willing to lose in order to win
When it looked like all might be lost, and his teammates dropped him on stage 17 to the top of the feared, uber-steep, 21 percent ramps of L’Angliru, he seemed to just accept it and say, “Oh well, if I drop, I drop.” But he held on just enough to keep the leader’s jersey, and the next day (after severe social media backlash about the team leaving Kuss behind), the team decided to finally give their all for him.
Let your friends help fight your battles
After Kuss’s teammates appeared to abandon their team leader (and any basic cycling etiquette), Kuss didn’t blast them in the press. He didn’t have to; the whole world did it for him. Negative comments in the hundreds of thousands rolled in, condemning Jonas and Primoz for selfishly leaving behind their team leader—the guy who’d sacrificed himself for six years to help them win their grand Tours, and by the next day, the PR disaster was so overwhelming, that the Jumbo Visma director ordered them to ride to help Kuss, no matter what. And the rest was history. Kuss even built on his lead in the final few days, now that he finally had their help.
Focus your attention, then see what you can manifest
It seems to be no mere coincidence that Kuss won the Tour of Spain six years after he moved to Spain himself to make it his European cycling base. He learned Spanish, learned every road by heart while training there, made friends with all the locals, and in 2021, when the Tour de France wove its way through the roads of Andorra on stage 17, Kuss broke away from the field and won the stage, riding the same roads he’d ruthlessly trained on. Cut to two years later, and he’s winning the national tour of the country he’s adopted as his own. And on the winner’s podium? He addressed the audience in fully-fluent Spanish for two minutes straight. The whole country embraced him like family.
Have a little fun out there
After winning on stage six, Kuss did something we almost never see: not only did he actually drink out of the champagne bottle, he drank out of it for 15 seconds straight. Chugging like only an American can, showing the world he can drink as hard as he can bike. The crowd ate it up, and unlike other winners of the cycling world, Kuss wasn’t an automaton; he had personality. He was “real.” He was one of the people.
Then on the final day when the final victory was his? He blasted that bottle nearly into outer space, like a NASCAR champ at Daytona. It was a burst of personality the cycling world had been dying to see. And the roars from the crowd were deafening.
Here’s to you, Sepp Kuss. Looking forward to seeing you on the top step of the podium a little more often now.
~
Weekly Inspiration (EC)
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Friday, 29 September 2023
On this day of your life
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I believe God wants you to know ... ... that truth
spoken is a gift given. Truth withheld is more than a gift denied,
it is an arrow aimed at the heart. It has been
said that "the truth hurts," but the exact opposite is true.
No truth is too hurtful, and no lie is harmless.
Because every truth opens your heart to another, and
every lie separates it. Yet know this: The
way you say your truth can be hurtful. So speak your
truth, but soothe your words with peace. Right now. |
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