Training Part 4: The Right Tools

You know what makes bike riding significantly easier?  Not having a flat tire.  You know what makes not having a flat tire significantly easier?  Having a tire pump that works.  My rear tire has been noticeably flat for the previous three days...like the rims riding an inch above the ground flat.  I've been trying to pump it up, but having no success.  Today  I decided that before we hit the weekend, I needed some resolution.  The tire either needed to be inflated or replaced.  So I sat down to try to learn a new skill.

Eventually I discovered that our tire pump had a small piece that had broken off and it needed to be replaced.  When I used a different pump I was actually able to build air pressure and my bike did not groan when I sat on it.  Along the way I learned how to remove my wheel, take out the inner tire tube, find and repair tube holes and I learned the mechanics of how a tire valve works.  Good information to have, but at the end of the day I simply needed another tire pump.

Now I am not going to say that this ride dd not hurt and that it was smooth sailing for the entire duration, but I barely broke a sweat as my son and I shaved three minutes off our time from yesterday.  Maybe it was the inflated tires.  Maybe it was that my seat was adjusted properly or we started later in the morning or that I have been riding all week.  Whatever the reason, today was faster and easier than it has been so far.  I am feeling cautiously optimistic about our ride next week.  We'll try a longer ride tomorrow and then go from there.

I was struck again today at how big an impact the right tools have.  There are some tasks that are nigh unto impossible...unless you have one small, perfect tool that was designed for that very job.  I was trying to inflate the tire tube in order to see if it had leaks.  My pump was not working so I thought:

"I'll blow it up with my mouth.  That's not working.  Ahh, the valve has a small rod that has to be depressed for air to flow in there.  How can I do that?  I could get a toothpick and hold it between my teeth then push on that rod while I blow..."

Shockingly, that did not work.  The next pump that I got was actually designed to depress that rod and pump in air.  In less than a minute my tire was inflated and ready to go.  The right tools are everything.  Auto shops have dozens of tools that are only good for one thing, but when used for that one thing they turn a 3 hour project into a 15 minute endeavor.  If you have ever tried replacing one of your car's CV joints on your own, you know what I mean.

A lot of our struggles in life come because we are using the wrong tools.  Skills, abilities, character traits, passions, resources, relationships, trainings...these can all be tools.  But we have to know which tool to use at which time.  I know of many non-profit organizations that get into deep trouble because they rely on good intentions and dreams instead of data analysis when they are creating their annual budgets.  Good intentions and dreams are vital tools for a non-profit.  They are instrumental in resource development, networking and vision casting.  They are lousy foundations for the creation of a budget because the budgeting process answers the question, "What will we do with what we have?" while good intentions and dreams answer the question, "Where do we want to go?" They both deal with the future, but take very different approaches and use very different tools.

If you are stuck in an area of your life, consider that there may be a different tool that you need in order to solve it.

 

Training Part 3: Use the Hill

I thought about subtitling this post something snazzy like:

• "What goes down must come up!"
• "The Joy and the Pain of Bike Riding"
• "Ain't No Mountain High Enough..."

But I didn't.  It does not really matter if I am going down a dip in the road or up a 33 degree slope, I feel right away when the grade changes.  Either the pressure is relieved from my legs and I feel the sweet, blessed relief of charging down hill OR my legs start to burn, my speed rapidly declines and I start downshifting like a mad man.  Hills are everything that is fun about bike riding and everything that is horrid about bike riding all in one neat and tidy package.  When you are going uphill, the great hope is that this too shall pass and there will be a downhill stretch just on the other side of the peak.  When you are speeding downhill, wind whipping past your face while your legs and your lungs joyfully sing, it is important to remember that there will probably be an uphill segment coming up very soon.  Remember to use the Hill.

That was my breakthrough revelation last year when my son and I did this ride:  Remember to use the Hill.  The first year of our trip was pain, miser, tears and despair.  I died going up every single hill and seriously considered calling my wife to come and get us midway through the ride.  My son is considerably lighter and in better shape than I am.  When we would get to a hill, he would just hop off his bike and bound up the rest of the slope like a big labrador puppy.  I had very little bounding in me.

Last year I realized that instead of trying to match my son's pace, I needed to make my own in order to have it be a good experience.  So instead of following him, riding the brakes downhill and grinding up the other sides I took the lead and built up speed on the downhills, using my velocity to shoot me most of the way up the next hill and significantly decreasing the amount of grinding that I did.  Instead of coasting through my decent I would pedal harder and build up speed.  I used the hill to get me up the next one.

I've been thinking a lot about the metaphor.  I just finished a job that paid me more than I had ever made before.  Financially we were zooming downhill.  Instead of just spending paycheck to paycheck, we pushed a little harder and used our income to pay off our credit cards and put away a couple of months worth of savings for when we had another hill to climb.  Now that I am looking for a job, we can use that margin to look for the right job, not just jump at the first opening that comes across the job boards.

Use the Hill.  It is not just applicable with money.  The warm weather of summer is the best time to winterize your home.  Summer is also a great time to try new things with your kids and see what resonates with them so that you can find opportunities for them to pursue their passions during the school year. 

Savor the good times...the parts of life that are fun and stimulating and filled with joy.  And use those good times to equip yourself for that next challenge.  Use the Hill.

Training Part 2: Diet

Know what I like to eat when I exercise?

Everything.

Seriously.  It is like my body says, "Why am I sore?   Do I feel sweat?  Was that...was that exercise?  I don't exercise.  At least I don't any more.  The last time I regularly exercised was when you were a swimmer in high school.  Is that what we are doing again?  OK. The calorie count that we were on back then was over 4,000 calories per day.  I am going to make your stomach ache and your mouth water until you deposit that amount of food.  Now,..what would be good with cheese?"

I do one thirty minute bike ride (I took four minutes off of my route from yesterday) and I become a hobbit.  Breakfast?  Of course.  2nd Breakfast?  Don't mind if I do.  Elevensies?  Sure...I'm exercising.  Lunch.  I earned that one.  Afternoon snacks?  Dinner?  Supper?  Midnight snacks?

I know that I am not going to whip myself into peak physical form in a week.  But it will be helpful on my ride if I have not gained another 10 pounds while training.

My appetite is an unintended consequence of my exercising.  Unintended consequences show up everywhere.  A good deed or action ripples across our community, leading to other deeds and other actions.  Sometimes the results are everything we could have hoped for:  a steady stream of people paying it forward for the betterment of all.  Sometimes the results are not what hoped for or intended:  I give an employee a great review and we talk about where they could grow next which leads them to think about their future in a new light which leads them to look for a better opportunity which leads to me losing a great employee.

Life with kids is full of unintended consequences.  I was going to qualify that to say "Life with special needs kids" but I am pretty sure it is true for them all.  Hosting a play date for the 4 year old leads to deputizing the other two in order to help clean the house a little bit.  That leads to the 12 year old criticizing the work of the 14 year old which leads to him trying to work harder and faster and then tripping over the 4 year old and dropping a mug which shatters on the ground and everyone being kicked outside so that a grown-up can clean up the pieces which leads to everyone being mad/sad when the play date shows up.  Then the play date is great.  The 4 year old has a blast.  The big kids are praised for their help and given some new big-kid privileges.  Everyone is still a family and still loves each other and life goes on.

Life is full of actions and reactions, challenges and victories, causes and effects.  Nothing happens in a vacuum.  Don't be shocked when unintended consequences arrive.

Just don't eat an entire block of cheese in one sitting because you are hungry from exercising.

 That is never a good idea.

Training

I'm sitting here at my desk and I can barely type.  I know what I want to write, my body is just angry at me and letting me know that in a variety of ways.  My hands are tingling as if they have just been asleep.  My lungs are burning.  I have showered, but I continue to blink sweat out of my eyes.  My legs...how is it possible to be numb and burning all at the same time?  All this from a measly 40 minute bike ride.

Rewind a few weeks.  My son and I are in the car and I ask him what he wants to do for his upcoming birthday.  His pause is only for a matter of seconds before he dives in, "The usual.  Let's bike around Farmer's Loop and stop for snacks and then go to Barnes and Noble then bike to Grandma's house."  We have developed a routine...it may be a tradition now as this will be our third year.  I think he really enjoys the freedom and adventure of the event as well as its familiarity.  I also think that he enjoys having guy time without any younger sisters around, but that is just my guess.

"Why are you asking?" he inquired, "My birthday is not for a long time."

"True," I replied, trying to hide my apprehension, "It's just that when you are a teenager, it gets easier to do things year after year.  When you are a grown-up, it gets more challenging to do things year after year.  I just need to spend some time getting ready.  We'll have a great time."

Welcome to my week of getting ready.  I've put it off as long as I can with chaos at work and sickness at home and weather delays.  If I don't start riding this week, the boy's birthday is going to be filled with a lot of manly tears.

So today I went on my 2nd bike ride of the season.  I think my tires are a little flat and my brakes need some work.  But mostly the issues are with my legs...and my lungs.  It is a little unfair that his birthday comes so close to the beginning of summer, A couple more weeks and the ride would be much easier to plan for.  When you are thinking of having children, no one gives you helpful pointers like, "Wait for a few more weeks so that you will have time to get into bike shape for his birthday each year."  Oh well.

I'll be riding this week.  It will get easier.  My lungs will remember how to breathe.  My legs will remember that they actually can get me up the hills because they have done it before.  My body will remember that it does not have to actively rebel at the first sign of exercise.  We've done this before and his birthday will be great.

But today was not that day.

Green Up

     My son and I were in Ecuador this past March and during one of our tours, the guide was describing seasons on the Equator.  He said that each year has four seasons: The first dry season, the first wet season, the second dry season and the second wet season.  Temperatures stay fairly consistent.  The amount of light that they get stays fairly consistent.  It is just that some days have more rain than other days.

     Fairbanks is a little different.  We can go from 90 degrees in the summer to -60 degrees in the winter.  We go from 22 hours of light in the summer to 2 hours in the winter.  We have definite seasons...sort of.  We all know about winter.  It lasts the longest and is what we are most famous for.  Summers are fairly clear.  It is hot out, there are mosquitoes and lots and lots of sun.  Unless it is a wildfire season, then the sun is obscured by the smoke.  Other than that...and the occasional June snowstorm, summers are fairly stable.  Fall is kind of vague.  Usually there is some transition time between summer and winter, often marked by dropping temperatures and rain that coincides with the state fair.  I say "usually" because most years it is a race between the sky and the trees to see whether the leaves will fall off the trees before the ground is covered with snow.  Snow covered ground is generally the indicator that winter has begun, so our winters usually start anytime from September 1st through the end of October.  I've always had a white Halloween.

     Then we have spring which is open to anyone's interpretation.  No one really knows if we are in spring or not because Fairbanks springs are rollercoaster rides.  They usually involve snowstorms and melts, freezing rain, huge puddles, piles of garbage revealed by melting snow and then, somehow, summer is here.  Is it summer now?  I'm not sure.  There is still snow on the ground and the trees have no leaves...but the temperature is not dropping below freezing anymore...mostly.

     Fairbanks spring is essentially comprised of two Ups:  Break-Up and Green-Up.  Break-Up is the transition from winter.  The temperatures are warming, the snow is melting from the roads and the roofs.  The hard pack of ice that covered driveways is becoming slush.  Everything becomes gray and dirty as the snow dissipates and reveals gravel and debris that accumulated over the past six months.  It is ugly but people are so happy because the air no longer hurts to breath.  Green-Up is the transition to summer.  The trees have been bare for months and the land is gray.  Two days ago we got a nice large rainfall.  Yesterday the sun was out and shining for most of the day.  Today there are buds beginning to open on trees.  In three days everything will be green.  Green-Up happens all at once after a long season of build up.

     I am in a period of transition and it feels a lot like our spring.  I am almost done with the Break-Up piece; the transition out of Morning Star is almost complete.  I am not to the Green-Up part yet where I am transitioning into something new.  I am in the part of spring that everyone despises...the Waiting-Up, if you will.  It's not winter.  It's not summer.  It's just dealing with the garbage that has been revealed and trying to get ready for when summer hits.  I've put in some job applications and had some great healing prayer this past weekend.  I'm doing chores around the house and playing with kids and doing some writing and...just waiting to see what doors open next.  Will that be tomorrow?  Will that be in two weeks?  I don't know.

     For all of you who are Waiting just like I am for the next season of your life to begin, I can only offer you encouragement.  Spend your time well, dealing with the garbage in your heart and in your house.  Prepare yourself to be ready to respond when Green-Up hits, for it will be sudden.  This time will not last forever, summer is coming.

Control Freak

I woke up with a knot in my stomach today.  The knot has migrated to the top of my head and morphed from a gnawing queasiness into a pulsing headache.  So...would I call this progress?  I'm not sure.  What I would call it is anxiety and my body manifesting the emotions that I am trying so hard to suppress.

I am, by both nature and nurture, a Control Freak.  I am an Oldest Child.  I am in the demographic majority.  I am an introvert.  I am an Alaskan.  I have administrative and strategic giftings.  I am an ISTJ and a 1 on the Enneagram.  Each and every one of those components have control issues.  Roll them into one person and you have someone who bristles when life is not proceeding as planned.

I have plans.  I have back-up plans.  I have back-up plans to my back-up plans.  I change lanes 4 stoplights early in order to make sure everything goes smoothly on daily commutes.  I love graphs, charts and spreadsheets.  Oh, how I love spreadsheets.  One of the things that makes me a pretty good manager is that I usually know how people will respond when I ask a question or throw out a new idea.  When plans do not work I can usually respond calmly because I have thought through scenarios.

Now I find myself here.  I have completed my employment at Morning Star.  I have submitted applications for a few different positions around Fairbanks.  And now I am waiting.  The earliest that I would hear about interviews would be early next week.  I can run through scenarios in my head, but there is nowhere near enough information to be able to figure out what our lives will look like in one month.

All of my buttons are being pushed.  Everything in me is demanding that I find something to control so that I have a sense of power and agency in my life.  I am doing a lot of dishes and raking the leaves off our yard.  I am checking job sites multiple times per day.  I want to eat everything that I see and play every video game known to man.

I know this is me being driven by Fear.  Recognizing it and naming it provides some relief to the physical pressure that I feel, but it still remains.  Here is the question that this all boils down to:  Will God take care of my family and I?  This will not be the final time that I ask this question.  Is He big enough?  Does He care enough?  Is He trust-worthy?

The answer has been "Yes" in the past.  It is probably "Yes" now.  I know this...and yet I need to know it more.  I don't have a plan or a back-up plan except to trust that God will take care of me.  He's provided the exact right job 3 different times in the past 7 years...He will probably do it again.  My invitation is to listen for His call and respond when it comes.  Until that happens, I will do dishes and rake leaves and write posts and devotionals and play with the kids...and try not to drive my wife crazy.

My First Project, Draft #3

You know what makes it really easy to get thrown off from writing regularly?  Illness.  And Lice.  And having your desk turned into the family's official delousing station.  And your last week of work.  And your anniversary.  All of these things are important.  Some are more fun than others.  And they all happened between this past wednesday and today.

You know what makes it really easy to get back into writing?  Looking at job boards and seeing what kind of positions are sitting out there currently.  So let's dive back in.

My past couple of posts have centered on a new project that I am wanting to work on, a devotional for special needs families.  I have the first passage that I want to build off of, now I am working on crafting the devotional itself.  The second draft was a significant upgrade to the first one.  But as I read it over, I don't think I am done yet.  This version has a lot of justifying on my part.  I spend a lot of verbal real estate explaining filling out my hard story.  There is very little time actually spent on encouraging the reader.

Here's the thing.  Everyone who wants to read this devotional will have some form of a hard story.  If I throw out the details of my son's sleep issues, the automatic response is to compare and internally say, "That's not so bad.  Listen to this!"  I don't want this to be a competition about who has suffered the most, I want it to be an opportunity for those who are giving everything that they have to take a small break so that they can be filled up.  So let's remove most of my sleep story details and add more about Hope:

Blessed are the Poor in Spirit…

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him.  Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:  “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

                                                                                -Matthew 5:1-3

     There is a hole in my living room wall.  It is the same size and shape as my fist…which is appropriate because that’s what I used to make the hole.

        I have a “I didn’t sleep when my son was little” story.  We all have those stories.  This was the night that I broke.  I was so tired and he was so loud and I was so angry and defeated that I lashed out.  The wall seemed like the target that would have the fewest long-term ramifications. That was the moment that I realized how insufficient I was for what I had been given in this life.  I did not have the skills…I did not have the character to be the father that my son needed.

This is being poor in spirit. We were created to be not enough so that we would seek out the One who completes us.  This tears at my soul.  I have to be enough.  I have to be.  Otherwise my son is doomed and I am a Failure.

        Not a Failure.  Blessed.  Favored.  Lucky.  Jesus says that we are among the most fortunate of humanity when we realize that we are incomplete.  “For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  God’s kingdom is tailor-made just for us.  It is a place where our shortcomings are covered by His goodness…where our selfishness is replaced by His compassion…where my feeble attempts to love my son are enhanced and reinforced by the One who is Love.

        I would never have known what “poor in spirit” meant if it was not for my son.  Through those late nights I have come to see myself more clearly.  I have come to see God more clearly.  I am grateful for those nights.

Reflections:

·         Where are you insufficient for your life?  Does that make you a Failure or Blessed?