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Printed from https://shop.writing.com/main/books/item_id/1957393-Mind-Altering-Substance/month/3-1-2024
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by Antway Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E · Book · Community · #1957393
Wisdom to help end conformity to regular, and being transformed to a newly created you
DETERMINE IN YOUR MIND


We often quote great people who have done historic like things. Those quotes are used at many graduations, weddings, and motivational meetings. They are designed to inspire the listener to shake loose from the mundane and start a new path of unstoppable accomplishments. But too often these quotes become a bored list of collections waiting for a speaker seeking to liven up a presentation to a dull audience.

This blog, I hope will be more than just famous quotes to impress the reader. I'm looking to do a new thing for me. A divorce from a marriage of nearly thirty years, led to a resignation from a prestigious and privileged career. As a pastor I can't say that I was the saint most were looking for, but I can say that life's lessons have left me pregnant with questions and insights that need a birth. After many promises and starts to memoirs and journals, I now have the time to write. I embark on this journey not knowing where it will lead or end up, but this vulnerable step is already enjoying an exhale that is cleansing. I've never been here before.

I enjoy running. I've run in a few marathons. The training club I belonged to laid out a training regimen of nearly 30 weeks to prepare us to complete the 26.2 mile run. Every Sunday aspiring runners increased mileage, with short homework runs in the middle of the week. The goal was to insure those who stuck to the training a guaranteed and satisfactory finish. Three weeks before the marathon was the Sunday designated as the preparation run of 20 miles. Runs after would be shorter until the day of the big race. We never ran more than 20 miles in any training term.

When I finally ran on marathon day, I noticed that my body cooperated well. I was used to the miles I trained for. I was proud of my accomplishments and expected that a marvelous testimony ahead would certainly inspire many more to take up jogging. Then my whole life changed. There was mile 21.

I still had smiles along this run for 20 miles, waving at the loud, encouraging spectators; enjoying the beat of the various rock bands stationed at every mile along the route. But then there was mile 21. My body had prepared and remembered the what 20 miles was like. But when mile 21 came, it was welcomed by the proverbial "wall" that many runners are all too familiar with. I had not trained for this. I was officially in uncharted territory. Only the mind could get me through, while the muscles criticized and resented the new territory! It's only what I told myself that helped me finish the race.

Life is like that marathon. Training, upbringing and experience can take us a long way. But then there is in every life a mile 21. Unchartered territory. Financial ruin, divorce, death of a loved one, the unexpected. Areas of life where we weren't prepared for. Writing is unchartered waters for me. You are getting the raw expressions of this author. I encourage you to be transformed in your thinking so you can handle the new and never before taken roads ahead.

So a quote that moved me recently comes from a 96 year old man, who took on ultra running. ( that's at least 100 miles!). After being questioned whether he was too old to take on this mentally and physically taxing event, Jack Kirk a.k.a. "The Dipsea Demon" at the finish line of the Deep Trail Race stated, "You don't stop running because you get old, you get old because you stop running." So I write….. till I die!!
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Printed from https://shop.writing.com/main/books/item_id/1957393-Mind-Altering-Substance/month/3-1-2024