Today Is A Special Day For Someone, What’s Your Day Like

 

Coaches have had a grand time reminding their athletes that, “There’s someone somewhere training just as hard as you. Time to step it up.”

 

They say this right after you’ve had a special day of success so you won’t let it go to your head too fast.

 

Or, “Someone is training harder than you ever have so when you meet it won’t be a contest. Step it up.”

 

They say this when you’re not having a good practice, a good lift, or any cardio.

 

Not to forget, “We all put our pants on one leg at a time, but someone somewhere is practicing jumping in with both legs. Step it up.”

 

The day gets harder and better with each iteration of ‘The Old Coach.’ If you’ve never had a coach lay into you, and you took it to heart, that’s what you missed.

 

Those who’ve had the pleasure of screwing up and losing a game, match, or any other word for competition experts use to say game or match, we hear it all the time. We’re always behind. The clock is always running out. And we didn’t train as hard as someone somewhere jumping both legs into their pants at once.

 

What do you do? Cheat? Take steroids? Cheat some more?

 

Come on, you’re not really asking. Are you? Let’s talk about attitude first.

 

Somewhere between the outright jump for joy of Mamma Mia and the loneliness of the ignored last breath of Kitty Genovese is the sweet spot to aim for everyday. One is the boundary of happiness that could turn into ecstatic dance with one too many ABBA songs.

 

The other is the realization, as hard as it would be take in the neighborhood where you grew up, that the urban stereotype is real, that someone wouldn’t cross the road to even pee on a person on fire. That’s what I came up with when a girl was murdered in front of her building in a killing that took half an hour.

 

At this point you decide which way your day is going? Are you a leaping, singing, sign of hope? Or a hapless victim abandoned by the society she lived in?

 

To help weight the argument toward a better day, consider the Conroy family that spawned author Pat Conroy. By most accounts his dad beat the crap out of all his kids, wife included.

 

Since he was cut off by family members for being a rat, it could be true. Instead of wallowing in doubt and self-hatred, Pat Conroy wrote it out to earn hatred from others. The Great Thomas Wolfe worked the same magic with his hometown and family. Writers gonna write and it ain’t always pretty, lemme tell ya.

 

The angel might look home, but they’ll still get a dog sicced on them in North Carolina.

 

If you thought the above was an opening to something more important than having a special day, you’re wrong. Blog readers have feelings just like you, a blog reader, and me, a blog writer. Pat Conroy seemed depressed. So did Wolfie. Let’s have a better day than them.

 

Start with listing choices you make each day. Don’t get into comments and say, ‘But Dave, these dots don’t connect.’ They connect, dear reader, but we don’t see them until it’s too late.

 

Avoid the sort of media that might warp your brain enough to make you think you’re doing it all wrong. Chances are you’re not doing anything wrong, but with a little guidance you could do better. That’s not a bad thing. Which brings us to:

 

If drugs are bad, drug dealers are worse. They know you, think they know you, or at least you think they know you. Heroin does that. Do heroin and that’s who you are. Don’t be one of them. Do porn and opioid addiction meet? The eight ball says, ‘all signs point to yes.’

 

Not so say heroin addicted porn people are all bad seeds, but why would you want to be someplace you have to make that call? Stick on the special day side.

 

No matter what age you are, what age you feel, set new boundaries.

 

Loosen up for a special day by letting go of yesterday whether it was the best of days, or worst of days. Put it all into today.

 

You’ll need a soundtrack to hum along to.