Two Seconds

"I think Western culture has things backwards. We equate comfort with happiness, and now we are so comfortable we are miserable. There is no struggle in our life, no sense of adventure. I've found that I am never more alive than when I am pushing and I'm in pain and I'm struggling for high achievement. In that struggle, I think there's magic."
- Dean Karnazes as told to Outside Magazine

On my way back from Los Angeles yesterday, I bumped into swimming legend Josh Davis. I heard him speak last year at The Phoenix Swim Club, so I went up, introduced myself and thanked him for his positive message. We talked for a few minutes, parted ways, blah blah blah.

After my encounter with him, I thought about the talk he gave last year. If I was going to give it a title I would call it "Two Seconds." Basically, Josh spent 4 years trying to knock off two seconds from his 200 freestyle time. In the world of mere mortals two seconds is one breath; in the world of elite swimming, two seconds is an Eternity. And this is what consumed him for 4 years.....Two seconds..And he loved it.

In an earlier blog I quoted my uncle and said, "It matters very little what I am doing, as long as I am fully engaged in what I do." Bingo! I think this what spoke to me about the "Two Seconds" speech. This guy is really, really good at one thing--a savant event--such to the extent that he spent four years chasing down something that most people didn't understand and is only publicized every 4 years. But he didn't care, all he wanted to do was swim.

It looks like the meaningful thing here that applies across the board is to apply that "Two Second" mindset to whatever you do. Whether it's swimming or accounting, working with care and craft just makes me feel good. There is joy in what I am doing when I operate in this space. It seems that the biggest challenge is to create the ongoing circumstances to make this space an ongoing possibility. More on this later.....

Namaste