One Way United

Every day we get to decide how to view our world. We decide how to view ourselves. What focus we decide to take has profound implications on our well-being. A couple days ago I read a story about a young women named Marin Morrison. At 14 she was diagnosed with brain cancer and was told she had only 4-6 months to live. She was close to an olympic caliber swimmer at the time. Despite her illness, her focus didn’t change…she still held on to her olympic dreams. Three years later, she is going to be competing at the Paralympics in Beijing. Here is an excerpt from the article:

The pursuit, the training, the opportunity to be an Olympian — all of it, for Marin, has been lifesaving.

“When she’s in the pool, it’s like she’s not sick,” Nancy Morrison said. “She pops up from the water, and there’s this big smile on her face. She’s happy. She’s comfortable. It’s like all of this is gone and it’s just swimming. She has very serious cancer and a lot of people in her situation wake up wondering if they’re going to live.

“Their whole focus is the illness. But every day for Marin, instead of waking up and thinking, ‘I’m really sick,’ her focus is, ‘I’ve got to get to the pool to get ready for my next race.’ She still has that drive and willingness to work hard at something.”

Marin Morrison is extraordinary, not because she has cancer, but because she has life. She is a one-person celebration of the indomitability of the human spirit. She isn’t defined by what she has overcome, but by the remarkably incandescent way she lives.

“She is truly my hero,” her mother said. “There’s never a moment when she’s angry. She’s never once asked, ‘Why is this happening to me?’ She amazes me. She’s an inspiration and she’s inspiring a lot of those other Olympians out there with her drive.”

Remember…you decide how you want to define yourself. Read the article…I hope it will help brighten your day a little bit.

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I have a lot of defining characteristics and one of them, I hate to admit, happens to be laziness. I have the best intentions in the world and it seems approximately 1% of those intentions actually turns into action. If you have hundreds of amazing ideas and don’t follow through on any of them, do any of those ideas really matter? It’s kind of like, if a tree falls in the forest and nobody sees or hears it, did it really ever take place? I mean, seriously, what good is an idea if it doesn’t turn into action?

Anyway, I’m already getting off topic. So, I’m lazy o.k. Whenever I try getting anything done at home, it just doesn’t happen. I get sidetracked and distracted so easily. I’ll say to myself “I should write a book about traveling adventures.” About one minute later I’m on espn.com reading the latest basketball article. I started a website for my kids that I coach and I go about a whole month in between updates. Whenever I get on the internet, I get all discombogulated. It’s like my brain keeps thinking “too much information in one place…no sane person can handle this.” As some sort of defense mechanism, I end up going to the same sites over and over and over again and then all of a sudden it’s been an hour and I’m like I want that hour of my life back!

Sometimes I’m so lazy at home that it may take me a couple hours to straighten the kitchen. I put it off for about 1 hour and 50 minutes and then do it in 10. Same thing goes with something like writing a newsletter article for my swim team or even something I’m doing for myself, like this project I’m working on now where I write personal definitions to a bunch of keywords.  When I’m at home, with lots of stuff to get distracted by, I’ll spend more time putting it off then I will actually working on it. You figure it out! I think it makes it harder that I don’t work a traditional job. I don’t have an office. The separation between work and play kind of blends together a little bit. As a swim coach, the only time I’m really responsible to be working is my time I spend on deck. But, I have to stay very organized to be good at my job with workout plans, creative new ideas to make things more fun, ways to create an environment that will keep my team motivated, and educating myself on different ways to teach swimming. When my life is out of balance and I spend an inordinate amount of time doing meaningless things, I think it has an effect on all my interactions and overall influence. It’s hard to be a leader when you can’t lead yourself first.

I first started going to Starbucks because I needed some place to hang before my practices started. You see, I live about 40 minutes to an hour and a half away from where I work in Shoreline, and 2 mornings out the week, I swim over there with a masters group as well. So in between I had no desire to drive all the way home and then drive back in the midst of rush hour traffic. So, I went to Starbucks because they had comfortable chairs. I believe this was also the time when I had like over $100 of Starbucks gift cards. A funny thing happened while sitting there by myself, free of distractions. I began formulating TONS of ideas. They would just come, one after the other. I found clarity. My workouts started getting way more creative. One day I even created a workout tree in which depending on how they did one aspect of the workout, it would lead them down one of two paths. From there the paths diverged and intersected, I think there ended up being like at least 20 different possible scenarios. I wasn’t just writing better, more organized swim workouts. I began pondering more seriously my overall coaching philosophy, I would have random epiphanies on how I wanted to live in my personal life, I began getting a clearer picture of the person that I wanted to become and how to get there. I began bringing books to read to inspire me or to educate. Sometimes I brought my laptop, opened up Microsoft Word, and started typing. I began carrying around a little notebook that I would write random ideas I had as they came to me.

Overall, the days I went to Starbucks and got an hour or two of “me time” away from distractions, I was happier, I coached better, I felt closer to God, and I felt better about myself. Needless to say, I started doing it more and more and it has now become part of my daily routine. My life feels so much more balanced out now and I actually get stuff done that I wouldn’t have before. Now whenever I’m at home, I just succumb to the laziness. I don’t even try to get anything done…well except for the obvious stuff that you kinda need to be at home to get done.
If you’re reading this and you are one of those people that either spend too much time doing meaningless things or are, in general, super busy all the time and have no time to yourself, try this at least one time in the next week. No, I’m not saying go to Starbucks (though you might do that anyway), I’m saying take an hour for yourself completely free of distractions. Just yourself, a journal, a pen, and God if you believe in Him. You will be surprised at the number of good ideas bubbling right beneath the surface of that brain of yours. Stuff that seemed really important will start seeming less important as you get more clarity. Life will become more simple. Solutions to problems that have been bugging you for weeks will just appear out of nowhere. I’m telling you…take the time…it’s totally worth it.

I believe it was Lincoln that said “Give me 6 hours to chop down a tree and I would spend the first four sharpening the axe.” I think that’s true for us as well. We need to keep that mind sharp in order to efficiently solve the problems each day presents.

Oh, and lastly, I do not have a caffeine addiction! I don’t believe any kind of addiction is healthy so I’m not always ordering caffeinated beverages. In case you were wondering

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Our Pastor introduces her. He tells us this woman is from Zambia and was orphaned by AIDS. Being the eldest, she was left to take care of her siblings. He opens the floor.

She steps up to the front of the stage. Hundreds of eyes staring at her. The pastor checks to make sure her head microphone is on. She appears relaxed, confident. Her passion for what she’s about to say instantly draws you to her. It’s as if you already know she’s going to deliver a speech in which after, your world will never be the same again. She has that aura about her. She begins by asking if we’re excited to be there. “Well I am now,” I thought. Speaking on Mothers day and all, she starts by briefly talking of her children and wishing all women a happy Mothers Day. Her accent is mesmerizing and it is evident she speaks with so much heart and so much truth. Then she gathers herself and begins.

“When you hear of 33 million people living with HIV and AIDS around the world, you hear of 25 million people who have already died of AIDS, when you hear of 15 million children that have been orphaned by HIV and AIDS, and 12 million of those being in Sub-Saharan Africa, I believe it becomes hopeless. It feels overwhelming. But I want to say that part of that number, of those who have died of AIDS, is my mother Joyce. Part of that number is my father Morford and part of that number is my baby sister who got infected before she was born, Linda. Part of that number is my brother Kelvin. These are the names of HIV and AIDS. AIDS is more than just statistics. AIDS has to do with people. And it is not just in Africa alone. It is growing. In Russia. It is very high in India. In China. In Eastern Europe. Right here in the U.S. every year, nearly 45,000 new infections happen every year and over 1 million people live with HIV. It’s not just because these numbers are overwhelming that we should be concerned. It’s because 1 person is part of that number…and that should break our hearts.”

She is right. That is why so many of us, despite knowing of this, and other major tragedies, sit and do nothing. It seems too big. It seems too overwhelming. There are millions of people affected. What can I do? But what she says is so true. All that matters is 1 PERSON is part of that number…and that alone should move us to act.

Her parents died because the drug needed to prolong their life cost $4 and they were living on less than $1. It doesn’t take much money to make a HUGE difference. There are some wonderful organizations doing amazing things. You don’t need to save the world, just save one person in it. Sponsor a child. Donate money. Donate time. Right now, there is one little boy, 7 years old, whose parents are dead. He is orphaned and alone. Save him! Do something! It doesn’t have to be about millions of people but just about that one little boy. That one little boy is reason enough to act.

The women who spoke is Princess Kasune Zulu. Princess is her name, not a title. We later learned that she, herself, is infected with HIV. The doctors told her that she had 6 months to live. 11 years later, by the grace of God, she is still able to tell her story and raise awareness of the disease and it’s effects on families and communities. Worldvision has given her the platform and she has given many talks all over the world.

*Update:

Here is a link to the whole service.  Princess is the second women that speaks.

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