My word for this year is LEARN.
So it just makes sense to use this Year of Sundays to reflect on 52 of my most significant Life Lessons. Some may seem more significant than others, but each one has changed how I live my life in powerful way. I’d love to hear if and how any of these same lessons have surfaced in the classroom of Your Life.
Keep on keepin’ on.
Next weekend, I’ll get to witness hundreds of people push themselves physically harder than I can only imagine pushing myself – even without a body that has MS in it. These folk will be here at Lake Waccamaw to Take the Lake. They’ll be participating in one or any combination of these four ‘personal endurance challenges’:
- walking/running 13 miles around much of the lake;
- paddling the 14 mile shoreline of the lake;
- cycling 22 miles around parts of the lake; and
- swimming 4 miles across the lake.
Piece o’cake, right? Well, if YOU say so.
This past Saturday I had the humble joy of witnessing about two dozen people complete ALL FOUR of these challenges in ONE DAY. This event is called Take the Lake X-treme. To say I was humbled would be the understatement of the year. When I asked one of of the X-treme participants why she did it, she said, “Ya gotta keep on keepin’ on so you can keep on keepin’ on.”
She’s right.
While I don’t see myself completing any of the Take the Lake challenges, I will remember that Keep On… Challenge the next time I don’t FEEL like going for that one-mile walk with Bloss, taking the stairs when there’s a perfectly good elevator, or parking at the end of the grocery store parking lot instead of whipping out my handicap parking placard.
With that in mind, you won’t be hearing from me next Sunday. My 8-year-old great niece Jerrah will be visiting for the long weekend. And we’ve got some keepin’ on to keep on!
In the meantime, how do YOU keep on?
Lisa’s Cheap Therapy blog 
At times it seems as though I spend a large portion of my waking hours trying to earn money to pay out. Then I find myself in the midst of friends and let the value of that wash over me. Or I sit with my dogs and listen to the feathered creatures that share this land with me and remember that my efforts provide for them. Then I see purpose and value other than monetary in my time spent earning.
My aunt Jean who passed away from recurrent ovarian cancer a few weeks ago always said that. ” keep on keeping on”….i hear her saying that as i enter the water to swim . Somedays its all i can do with the fibro pain etc.
Thank you Lisa for your writing, love and sense of living life to the fullest despite the obstacles of our bodies!
Just what I need to hear this morning. The hard part for me is finding the motivation/energy to do the maintenance work that “keepin’ on” requires. I also need to remember that getting back to water aerobics doesn’t need to mean a whole class at the pace of people who have been going 3 times a week for years, even if they are older than me. My retired rheumatologist told me over and over to pace myself. I think that will be my goal for this week: do some maintenance work at my own pace and keep on keepin’ on. Thanks, Lisa.
Yard work!!! I love it! It is never done, gets me in tune with nature, and gives me a sense of accomplishment.( As long as I can use a push mower, we will never have a riding one, and we have a BIG yard!) I actually gained weight earlier this summer when we had all that rain, just because I was unable to be out moving around more. And, tomorrow, I will be back to being on my feet and moving around almost all day as I teach. My shoe size has actually grown since I started teaching, because of that, I think. But if it helps keep me moving, that’s ok! (Gee, realizing that being a public school teacher helps me to keep moving, is a positive way of thinking and helps to counteract all the recent negativity in NC education! Thanks for leading me to this thought, Lisa!!)
This is one of my favorite phrases……. and to follow it through, I just keep putting one foot in front of the other!!!!!