How to Succeed at Life Without Even Trying

Facing the prospect of working 60-hour weeks for the next month or so, (thanks to the dogged determination of one recruiter whom shall at this point remain nameless, for fear that her workload doubles due to my mentioning her in my blog), I decided to treat myself to a little R&R yesterday by attending the Team Ortho Monster 5K and Monster Half Marathon in Minneapolis as a spectator. Marathon Woman and a few of her running club friends had signed up to run the half and, wearing dresses under the guise of "still running for prom queen", they all managed to PR the race. My daughter ran in her normal sportswear during the 5K timed race and PR'ed as well. Everyone had a lot of fun, and were discussing on the ride home the next dress-up race. My wife and I are considering date night some evening in the dress she wore for the race, since it was not only very practical but looked nice on her as well.

I'm grateful for the series of little actions that conspired to bring me to this event yesterday. I had planned originally for a weekend of toil in my home office, "toil" being the operative word here, as the home office is in such disarray right now that the Post-It Notes that clutter my desk match the rainbow of colors of the leaves outside, and are just as numerous. I wasn't necessarily needing an excuse to beg out of this project, to be certain. The late Friday afternoon call from my recruiter, offering me a short-term opportunity that fit precisely in my current work schedule, made me realize that my workdays will be longer and weekends shorter for the foreseeable future. Faced with that prospect, and realizing my daughter was going to otherwise have a few hours to herself alone at the finish line waiting for my wife and her friends to finish, I decided the office could wait a day in favor of spending some quality time with family and friends. The day was cool and sunny, the costumed runners enjoyable to watch, and the entire morning will be a fun autumm memory to cherish in the years ahead.

Only my daughter had the goal of setting a personal record for the race; the running club prom queens were simply out to have fun. The fact that they PR'ed was icing on the cake to them, and they were all quite pleased and surprised at their times when they came in. As I write this entry, I realize that maybe they hit onto something here. They were busy having so much fun running in their costumes that they apparently reached their usual goal of a personal record without even trying and, indeed, without it even being a goal at the onset. Perhaps the habit of doing the best they could given whatever circumstances were present at the time, served them in this current race almost automatically.

If my daughter hadn't signed up for the race, or the new project hadn't surfaced that I will be starting this week, I would not have been motivated to attend the race, and would have missed out on an enjoyable morning and this little insight into how the universe operates.

So, all in all, I'm grateful for these little nudges from the universe that tell me to get out and relax for awhile, pay attention to what happens, and reflect afterward to gain an insight and clarity. And now, I guess it's back to the Post-It Note raking and office excavating.

Enjoy the day! Namaste