"There is a time for being ahead,
a time for being behind;
a time for being in motion,
a time for being at rest;
a time for being vigorous,
a time for being exhausted;
a time for being safe,
a time for being in danger."
-Tao Te Ching
a time for being behind;
a time for being in motion,
a time for being at rest;
a time for being vigorous,
a time for being exhausted;
a time for being safe,
a time for being in danger."
-Tao Te Ching
I can't tell you how many times I read that quote, and disagreed with it as I was doing so. Too passive, too complacent. It was a shelter to build excuses - "I'm not training now because I'm not ready for it...this is my time for rest, for being safe." Bullshit. Life is meant to be lived, always striving to be ahead, to be vigorous, to be in motion. It's supposed to be wrestled with. I knew it whether Lao Tzu did or not. And while it was a beautiful paragraph to read, it was wrong. You got fat by being safe, by being behind. You died with unfulfilled dreams by resting, by surrendering to exhaustion. Half of the paragraph seemed to have it right, the ahead, the motion, the vigorous, and strangely enough, the danger. But the rest wasn't for me, wouldn't ever be for me.
[An Oscar Wilde quote creeps to mind: "I am not young enough to know everything".....]
Now I find myself taking shelter in the very sentences I spent so long shaking my head at; the sentences I skipped over time and time again. After a year of constant motion, of classes and tests and sunny bike rides and hot runs and weekends dominated by races, after an Ironman and a graduation and becoming a godfather, after all of that and much more - I am at rest now. No longer a slave to the classroom, I work only 3 days a week. I don't train much either, it's too wet or too cold, often both. I sleep more than I ever have, I feel lazier, more behind than I thought possible. I spend many of my mornings lying down, reading, not in a pool or on the road before traffic starts. Yesterday morning was no exception.
And on that rainy morning, for perhaps the very first time, I read that passage - every line of it. The words hadn't changed, but their meanings, especially in how they applied to my life, had. I guess when you really look at it, that's all reading is - not the words written, but the meaning that's extracted. Not what is said, but what you hear.
I know I'm all over the place, not making too much sense. It just struck me, that's all. I've looked at something fifteen or twenty times and only read it once.
[An Oscar Wilde quote creeps to mind: "I am not young enough to know everything".....]
Now I find myself taking shelter in the very sentences I spent so long shaking my head at; the sentences I skipped over time and time again. After a year of constant motion, of classes and tests and sunny bike rides and hot runs and weekends dominated by races, after an Ironman and a graduation and becoming a godfather, after all of that and much more - I am at rest now. No longer a slave to the classroom, I work only 3 days a week. I don't train much either, it's too wet or too cold, often both. I sleep more than I ever have, I feel lazier, more behind than I thought possible. I spend many of my mornings lying down, reading, not in a pool or on the road before traffic starts. Yesterday morning was no exception.
And on that rainy morning, for perhaps the very first time, I read that passage - every line of it. The words hadn't changed, but their meanings, especially in how they applied to my life, had. I guess when you really look at it, that's all reading is - not the words written, but the meaning that's extracted. Not what is said, but what you hear.
I know I'm all over the place, not making too much sense. It just struck me, that's all. I've looked at something fifteen or twenty times and only read it once.
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