Motivating through the minutiae

As I’ve been spending a significant amount of time running lately, having plenty of time to contemplate and reconcile my thoughts, one of the areas I’ve been concentrated on is our motivations for completing the minutiae involved with everyday life in adulthood. When we are in our adolescent years, we generally have plenty of people looking over our shoulder, ensuring we complete the necessary tasks, and as we progress, we learn the concept of others counting on us for certain things. For me, playing baseball was the most central aspect of my life where I learned the values of teamwork. With progression to different levels, it became engrained in me further. By the time I had reached my latter years at the college level, the decision to take a day off or spend the summer at the beach and relax instead of playing summer ball and working out wasn’t even a choice I considered. Sure, different memories could’ve been made, but the beers don’t taste as good and the sand doesn’t feel as fresh between your toes unless you earned it first. I knew I had to invest in my craft because I knew my teammates would be counting on me come crunch time and who would I be to not have done the most I could to prepare for that moment? All this to say, when we are taught the importance of being apart of a team at a young age and others being impacted by our actions in such a clear way, it’s easy to stay motivated and push through temporary displeasure in pursuit of a long-term reward. But, when we move onto the real world and suddenly we don’t have teammates who know when we are slacking off or not, what happens? 

One of the reasons running has been so enjoyable for me as of late is because of the nature and challenge of the solitude. It almost feels like a metaphor for navigating all other pursuits. When on a team, everyone can tell if you’ve been lackadaisical in practice or not putting in extra work. When I’m running on a path in the city of Angels on a Saturday afternoon in the 85 degree California sun, complete strangers won’t know if I quit on my run early, the naked homeless man I jog past won’t give a shit if I cut the run short and grab a Gatorade instead, only I will know if I left it all out there that day. And nothing ruins the rest of my day more than knowing I took a shortcut and could’ve realized more of my potential. 

This led me to my central thought: Everyday life can devolve so quickly if we aren’t careful because the easiest people to quit on are those closest to us, and ourselves. Because we assume those closest to us will make excuses on our behalf, and say oh they’re just having a bad day, that’s not who they really are. Of course, we can always find an excuse for ourselves too, it’s how we cope and maintain our sanity. While other acquaintenances may see it more black and white, just plain unreliability or they simply aren’t HIM or HER. It’s a beautiful and sobering paradox: The easiest person to make excuses for is ourself, but we are also the only person we can’t hide from. 

Of course, we are all mere mortals and can’t be perfect everyday. It’s a fine line of not making excuses for ourself and maintaining accountability while embracing those bad days as learning lessons. Because the sun always rises again and our team is always deeper than we know.