Hey Everyone, its been some time since the last time that I post a blog and a lot has gone one in life. As you may know, my wife is on a journey to change her lifestyle as it relates to eating and exercising. She has done an amazing job of transforming her life, she has lost nearly 40 pounds since Feb. 1, and has even won an award at the American Heart Association 5k last week (you can follow her blog at covingtonmomof2.blogspot.com - do you see what we did there with the names - genius I think). Anyway, she recently threw down a challenge on me - she may now realize it, but she did - and I joined the same gym that she belongs to. I signed up for the gym on Thursday night and Janel thought a great way to reward/punish me for this decision was for us to do our first ever spin class together. For those of you who do not know, spin classes originated from the devil, and involve you riding a stationary bike with varied tensions and speeds for approximately an hour. This sounds easy, and the instructor seemed like a very nice person as we talked prior to class but apparently, when you give a 5ft 4in tall lady that has 9 children (should have been a sign of crazy from the get-go) the reins of a spin class, the volume control of the stereo, and a mixed tape of 80's songs- they turn into drill instructors. Let me tell you, I have never in my life been so glad to walk (read stumble - I am 100% serious when I say that Janel and I both nearly fell over trying to take the step down into the parking lot after class because we couldn't support our own weight, or feel our butts for that matter) out of a class in my entire life. Luckily, Madison was getting cranky in the gym's toddler room and someone came to get either Janel and I to come calm her down - being the good husband I am, I naturally volunteered to leave class about 10 min early. I do not think I will ever return to a spin class again, for several reasons. First, the class was all females other than myself; secondly, one of the participants was around the age of 60; and finally, my male pride was severely damaged at the fact that these women were kicking my tail. I just can't have that!
As I have mentioned before, I work for Starbucks. April is the our global month of service, and as a company we hope to volunteer over 200,000 hours of time to various causes around the country and the world. Today, I had the privilege to be able to work at the regional Special Olympics that took place at Ponchatoula High School. Even though I got burned to a crisp, the day was a great time of giving back to the community. The athletes were able to compete in several events from running track races to a softball throw.
Throughout the day, one thing continued to happen. No matter how fast or how leisurely the athlete ran or how far they could throw or jump, everyone parent, friend, volunteer, and even the high school students that volunteered to miss classes all day cheered for the athletes like they had just beat Michael Phelps to win the gold medal. Every athlete had such a sense of pride, not just because of the people clapping and yelling their names, but because they had accomplished a task - and for some, the tasks were very difficult. None of them gave up, not one of them quit because it was too hard, or hot, or too far to go. They had enough pride not to quit.
Take that lesson back to my spinning class. I have too much pride to go back, but I had to ask myself today - between me and these athletes that have struggles day in and day out - who is the better person? Pride can make us do some really dumb things, and can lead us to places in life that we don't want to be, all because we are focused too much on ourselves and how me might be viewed or perceived. My hope is that you and I do not allow pride to change us into people that we don't want to be.
I will leave you will a quote from one the schools that was competing today, and I hope it inspires you to push pride aside and strive for greater things in life.
"Everything I can, I will."
On the Journey
Jonathan
P.S. - Tomorrow, we are going to the local strawberry festival tomorrow. It should be lots of fun and a lot of walking. I may have to pilfer the wagon from Morgan with the way my legs feel tonight. I will let you know how things go in a later blog.
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