Day 382. 192.5 pounds lost.
It’s been an incredibly busy last two weeks. I’ll explain some other time, but there are definitely changes in my near future.
Life has had a few bumps. For instance, when you get on the scale after busting your ass all week, and you only have a 1.5-pound loss. Those are frustrating weeks. I’ve had two of them back to back already this new 2018 year. You almost want to hit something. That’s the amazing thing about this journey though….is that life is still happening every day and it never seems to fall short of throwing me a curve ball from time to time. This was one of those days:
I know a year ago on this particular day I would have gotten frustrated, ordered a pizza, picked up a gallon of ice cream and sunk my sorrows away on the couch. I don’t do that anymore. I have been blessed to figure out there are better ways to deal with the things life throws at you than eating. Eating was an outlet for me for most of my life, so the reprogramming has been intense. It’s not that I don’t EVER have bad days when I eat something I shouldn’t…..but those bad days are few and far between now.
I started this year a bit butthurt for a few reasons; one of them was not meeting last years goal. I sat down with someone I considered to be my mentor last weekend, and he asked me an important question: what’s the difference between a failure and a disappointment. It was a damn good question because I had never thought about it. My initial response was this: “A disappointment is something you can get past. A fail you might not”. After thinking this over for a week, I’ve changed my mind a bit. I was inspired by an incredible football game I saw last weekend.
I grew up south of Seattle in the state capital; Olympia. If you grow up in Washington, you love a few things, coffee for sure…. and the Seattle Seahawks. I have genuinely loved the game of football since I was young. Every year I watched those Seahawks; they made it into the playoff round 16 times, only to fail after the first game or so but we loved them anyway. I grew older and moved to Texas to go to college, but the Seahawks were still in my heart. In Texas where the Dallas Cowboys reign, I was the lone Seahawk fan on my street; banner hanging outside every season.
I was in Minnesota by 2013 when the Seahawks season went ballistic. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. We had a rookie quarterback named Russel Wilson who had only played one year in the NFL. It was a longshot at best. But by the time we reached the eleventh week of the season, we already had ten straight wins. It was probably the most exciting season of my life! I was the dork on my street that had painted the Seahawks logo into a pile of snow and sprayed lime green and blue squiggly lines all along my property line. Long story short they won the Superbowl that year, and I cannot even describe the feeling as a lifelong fan how amazing that was. Sheer joy.
Here’s the problem with being a Seahawks fan in Minnesota. I don’t ever get to see the games. Unless they’re a Monday night primetime game, they don’t exactly televise the Seahawks here in the Midwest. And then there is the not getting to go to the games – the regular season experience, all those things. I kind of wanted to be able to cheer for a “home team” again, so with a tiny bit of reluctance and after seven years of being in Minnesota, I finally decided to adopt the Vikings as my primary team. I will always love the Seahawks – we’re just going to put them in my back pocket. I might wear a Vikings shirt during regular season now but guarantee you I will still be walking around in my Seahawk shoes. I figured since I was a fan now I would do some research on the team. Afterall, I knew nothing about the Vikings. Little did I know the horror I would uncover. Talk about disappointments. Seahawk fans have never known the disappointments that the Vikings fans have had to endure during their lifelong love of their team. It was horrible reading I almost felt bad for every fan in Minnesota. But…. nonetheless, I was actually proud when I put on purple for the first time last Sunday. I’m not a bandwagon fan. If history repeats itself, I stand a pretty good chance of being disappointed like everyone else.
Here’s what I learned though. Disappointments are those things you just work through. Not everything goes according to plan all the time. You learn, then re-evaluate and try it again the next time. A fail is when you give up and walk away. If you haven’t given up, a disappointment is just a setback. If you quit and give up – then it’s a fail. This journey of mine? There might be 100 disappointments….. but every day that doesn’t go according to plan I try again the next…… and the next. There’s a goal, and I’m not stopping…….. Not for anything.
This Vikings team? I guess maybe I can identify with people that can fall down so many times but refuse to stay down there. I mean seriously. As a franchise, I’m surprised they haven’t packed it in. But damn, they haven’t. It might take 100 times, it might take 1000 times. But there is an incredible spirit in any individual that refuses to say….. “fu$k it.”
If you’re on your own journey and you catch yourself saying:
- I’m just not good enough…
- Nothing ever works out…
- This always happens to me…
Think about what would happen if you just decided to try one….more….time. #SKOL
Lovingly,
Bean
