Serenity Through Sweat

Privilege

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. The intention of this blog had always been to present a positive and uplifting message generally based around my passion for fitness, fatherhood, and flying, and to avoid politics. However, given current events, I thought I would add my thoughts on privilege.

Let’s start the discussion with a definition. Privilege is a special right advantage or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group.

I don’t believe I have the knowledge or the experienced position requires to discuss race and the inner workings of privilege that go with it. Instead I will tell you a story about a realization of a privilege I was previously unaware of.

It was 2009 and I was in an aviation safety and security class, working towards my Masters degree, with an interesting assignment. Our professor was an airline pilot on a leave of absence from his airline after the great recession. He was teaching as an adjunct professor in addition to running an aviation safety and security consulting company with contracts all over the globe.

The assignment was to identify potential holes in the aviation security of a local airport, and how those holes could be exploited. The professor wanted us to think like those groups who would perpetrate such acts in order to prevent against them.

I thought it was an interesting and valuable exercise, assigned by an intelligent and credible professor, and I went home after class and got started. To me, it seemed like a natural way to assess vulnerability. Whenever I was trying to break down a wrestling technique the best way to understand it was to try to counter it. It seemed like we were doing the same thing with the assignment, just with higher stakes and more on the line.

So I was surprised when I got an email ahead of the next class saying that the assignment would no longer be required, but would be an optional in class discussion instead of a paper.

One of the international students had reached out to the professor and raised his concerns. Putting his name on a written document that discussed breaching airport security, even if it was a purely academic exercise, was perilous to his ability to remain in the country.

Day 4 of the overhead mobility challenge, adding some toddler weight to the peanut soft tissue work.

This wasn’t something I had even considered. And I think therein lies the privilege. We were both at the same school, in the same class, working on the same assignment, so this wasn’t a case of different starting points. But this international student, (not that it matters, but a fair skinned European) was burdened by anxiety and concern that didn’t even occur to me.

What is the weight of that concern and anxiety? What toll does it take? How many of his choices or actions had to be put through that filter? On the other side, how liberating is it to not carry around that stress? To be able to act mostly free of concern of the potential outcomes? How many choices have I made unburdened by those fears?

Day 7 of the overhead mobility challenge.

I don’t think these are quantifiable questions, but rather are low stakes examples of the privilege I never realized I had. This blog is not and has never been a place for answers, but rather a place for self reflection and hopefully inspiration for the same in you the reader. So, I will leave you with these words from Max Ehrmann, in the hope that we can all look at ourselves and what privilege we may have.

“If you compare yourself with others you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.”

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Routine

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. Today I want to talk about the value of routine, and the power that it holds especially in these uncertain times.

Three months ago I purchased a membership to The Ready State for myself as a birthday gift. I had already started to read Becoming a Supple Leopard, and I was starting to develop a morning mobility/yoga routine, and the 14 day mobility challenge they offered drew me in as a perfect evening wind down routine.

Some of the first 14 day mobility challenge, working on the bottom of the squat position

I started waking up about 10 minutes earlier in hotel rooms to make sure I could do some breath work and mobilize first thing in the morning. I made the mobility challenge part of my night time down regulation to help me get better sleep in those same hotels. (With the exception of some mobility work after particularly long runs instead of before bed)

When I was at home I would mobilize at night after El Duderino was down and my wife and I were watching TV before bed. First thing after waking up I would do my morning flow routine and drink a liter of water before anything else.

Overhead mobilization with banded shoulder distraction

I did most of the first 14 day mobility challenge in hotels since I was trying to fly a lot at the beginning of March. At ist completion, I am incredibly grateful for the improved squat position, not only for it’s impact on my running, cycling and Jiu Jitsu, but especially since it puts me at eye level with El Duderino. (A place I’m spending more and more time as the terrible twos progress)

As a pilot my schedule changes day to day and month to month. Bedtime, wake time, what city I’m in, what time I workout, what food I have access to, the only constant is change. So, controlling variables that I can, in order to make some semblance of a routine helps me maintain good habits and keep my sanity.

Simple and sinister followed by some overhead mobilization with the lacrosse ball

What a difference three months makes. The second 14 day mobility challenge from The Ready State started a few days ago on June 1. I haven’t flown an airplane, been to a hotel, or for the most part even left the house since completing the first mobility challenge. My sleep is wrecked, (although that’s mostly due to newborn Speedy and stress, rather than hotels and travel).

I’m pleased that I put in some of the upfront legwork to develop a mobility routine before the pandemic wreaked havock on everyone’s plans and schedules. I’m grateful to The Ready State for providing a platform and motivation to further my routine. I’m indebted to my routine for the stability, sanity, and serenity it provides.

Deputy Dad, laying down the laws of the sandbox

Without a mission around which to set a schedule, it is easy for routine to devolve into disarray. While establishing and maintaining a routine takes dedication and commitment, I believe a good routine breaks the laws of physics, in that it gives back more than what is put in. There is no better time than now to start your own routine, and as an added bonus, it’s hard to be stressed about Covid-19 with a toddler on your chest and a lacrosse ball in your back.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

This week in SerenityThroughSweat, a couple of rainy runs, some S&S kettlebell work, the 14 day mobility challenge working on overhead position, and grandma comes to visit Speedy and El Duderino.

Multisport Social

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. As we continue through various forms of social distancing and reduced contact I want to talk about my appreciation for the social interaction of multisport athletes.

The triathlon community is one that I have found to be incredibly welcoming. Everyone likes to talk shop and compare gear, training plans, nutrition etc… But, it is also a largely solo sport. Yes there are teams, and yes you can run or ride together, but drafting rules and the nature of training time required ensure that a lot of miles are covered alone.

Quarantine baking Irish soda bread and naan

This solitude can be a blessing for the large number of type A personality multisport athletes. It can be a place of self reflection and you guessed it, serenity. It can also be a little lonely. Intervals and miles can tick by with no other contact than your own thoughts.

Especially in Florida, we have not only a very robust multisport population but also large number of runners and cyclists. So at any given time you can have countless athletes all on their own training sessions and individual journeys.

Speedy and El Duderino 2 month comparison

Here is where we find my favorite part of the multisport social interaction. Next time you are out shopping or running errands see how many people wave, nod, or otherwise acknowledge you. Now keep that same count on your next training activity.

The nod, wave, smile, salute, or general acknowledgement, while a simple gesture, is a powerful proclamation. It is the recognition from one athlete to another. An endorsement and an affirmation of two different but parallel purposes. A support system that strengthens spirit on even the dreariest of training days.

Isn’t that what we need as a country and as a species in these troubling times? A simple and quiet acknowledgement of parallel purposes. Running already brings us towards Serenity, the simple acknowledgement can help us pass it on.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

This week in SerenityThroughSweat, Speedy turns 2 months old, El Duderino “helps” with quarantine baking, team TriGoodBeer puts on a virtual Covid-19km run, and some much needed mobility work and projectile meditation.

Movement medicine after a long run, and some hits and some misses

The Briefest of Moments

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. Today I want to talk about some of the origin story of Serenity through Sweat. This last run got me feeling the same way I did all those years ago, and then thinking about how far we’ve come.

Serenity through sweat was born as a tagline in November of 2010. It was part of my grieving process after the loss of some close friends.

I’m not sure where the inspiration for the tagline came from. Maybe I had been watching Firefly on Netflix, I’ve always been overly sweaty individual, and almost every activity that induces sweat has some sort of ability to change your mental state. Wherever it came from, I put it in writing twice in the weeks following that tragedy.

What I do know is there was something in my mental state that changed, enough for me to perceive it, analyze it, and for the concept to stick with me. “Serenity through sweat, if only for the briefest of moments”. Despite the grief, despite the loss and the depression, physical exertion past the point of sweat, was a mental and emotional oasis, even if it was a temporary destination.

I remember one of those first two workouts was going to play Ultimate frisbee at our Wednesday night league. We played on a set of soccer fields under the lights from 8-10 pm, out in the middle of nowhere. On cool enough nights (like this particular one in November) with a low level temperature inversion, all the sweat would evaporate and form a low fog over the fields.

On that particular night, full of grief, full of anger and denial, I remember thinking it was a field of dreams. This soccer field lighting up the darkness in the middle of nowhere, shrouded in a fog produced from sweat. I felt as though crossing the invisible barrier of the field somehow kept all the emotion on the other side, and I was free to run, to sweat, and to heal.

This memorial day run reminded me of those first visits to serenity. The anxiety of not knowing the future of my job, the stress of sheltering in place with two young children, the sleep debt continuing to accumulate with a newborn, fear over a potential health threat to my family that can’t be seen. All of these emotions have been brewing for weeks now, and my mental state was in need of alteration.

Being a particularly rainy and dreary day thanks to the tropical weather from Bertha was perfect. The outside picture matched my mental state, and the rain would help keep the temperature down and blanket some of the wind. Plus, there is something cleansing about rain, especially running in it.

As soon as El Duderino was snuggled down for his nap I made my getaway without waking him up and strapped on my running shoes. My sunglasses were splattered with rain droplets and fogged up before I even got out of the neighborhood, and my shoes were starting to squish with each step before the first mile, but none of it mattered. I had crossed that same imaginary barrier, and for the next fifty nine minutes and seven seconds, I was in an altered state.

While I don’t think it is a place you ever get to fully stay, I’m very grateful to be able to go back and visit often, if only for the briefest of moments.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Speedy turns 8 weeks old and El Duderino doing his best Evil Knievel impression

Urgent and Important

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. Today I want to talk about a lesson that was passed on to me by a particularly difficult college professor. That is, assessing and determining what is urgent and what is important, and letting those assessments drive our task prioritization.

First let’s talk definitions, we need to understand what the differences are before we can make any assessments. Urgent, means something that requires immediate action, while important means something has significance or value. There is some great intersectionality between these two concepts, as well as some important differences. Tasks can be both urgent and important, but can also be urgent and unimportant. Likewise, tasks can be both important and urgent, or can be important but not urgent.

This was the situation I found myself in the other morning, being forced to assess tasks and prioritize their order based on urgency and importance. Let me set the stage for you.

It was business as usual giving my wife some well deserved extra winks in the morning and everything was as calm as two kids in quarantine can get… Until it wasn’t. I had a mostly calm infant in my arms, a rambunctious toddler playing at my feet, my pants around my ankles, and things moving along normally with my morning constitutional.

Speedy wanted to help with arts and crafts

Then comes that dreaded moment where the water containing your quarantine carb heavy log starts rising instead of falling. Like a shark smelling blood in the water, my infant Speedy picked up on my apprehension immediately, and responded with cries matching my mood. Not to be outdone by his little brother, El Duderino (the toddler playing with his match box cars at my feet) decided to add his hat in the ring for my attention, needing one of his cars fixed.

The first step in this equation is assessment, what is urgent, and needs immediate action, and what is important? (And remember the brown tide is rising). It’s hard to say that your children crying isn’t important, and as pilots we are taught to “silence the horn” before dealing with the emergency. So my general inclination in most situations is to calm them down to a noise level where I can think clearly. Brown tide rising and me one handed, is not most situations though.

The whole family getting in on arts and crafts time

So the kids crying is important, but not really urgent, they will survive crying for a few more minutes while I try to stave of the poopocalypse. Task prioritization is pretty much handled now, the troublesome toilet both requires immediate attention, and while not life or death, is pretty important if I don’t want to spend the rest of my morning dealing with a crappy commode and a funky floor.

Thankfully, in the brief moments it took to do that mental math, the water stopped it’s ascent, still below the bowl level. Now with some breathing room I was able to think about steps moving forward. Do I try to use the bidet sprayer over the tub still one handed with an infant in arms with a less stable seating? Do I pull up the pants and pray for a clean no-wiper? Do I attempt one handed plunging with a full bowl?

Dump truck is about as full as the toilet bowl was

As time slowed to a crawl and my task prioritization began to materialize (one handed bidet spray over the tub with infant in arms, put Speedy down, educate El Duderino on the full bowl plunging technique) the slurry gurgled down the drain after it’s perilous perch near the top without any intervention. And, while I was saved any of the heavy lifting, I was grateful for the mental walkthrough, however anxiety inducing and blood pressure boosting it was.

El Duderino checking out “scoopy” the excavator getting a bath on our stroller run

All said and done the water level was raised for about 90 very stressful and perilous seconds. Being able to identify, assess, and prioritize tasks based on urgency and importance, helped me turn the situation from what could have been a week 10 quarantine emotional breakdown, to something I can share with all of you as a learning moment or at least a good laugh.

1 mile run, 100 sandbag squats, 100 push-ups, 100 rows, and 4 min plank in the training mask above 90°. (Then a much needed beard trim)

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Duty

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. I often think about what it is to be a man and what it is to be a father, specifically through the lense of communicating that message to my boys, early and often. And while the answer is nebulous and is something of a moving target, the search for the “answer” seems to always give me something I needed in that moment.

Obviously COVID-19 has dominated the news cycle and most of our thoughts recently. It’s hard to find even the simplest of tasks that hasn’t been affected at least in some way. That said, the mission statement of men and father’s hasn’t really changed. Sure the circumstances are different but the mission remains steadfast.

El Duderino not a big fan of the face shield

Which brings me to duty. In the movie gladiator, the General Maximus asks his servant Cicero, “Do you find it hard to do your duty”. Cicero replies, “Sometimes I do what I want to, the rest of the time I do what I have to”. This really spoke to me as father in these strange times.

I believe that in order to be effective at one you must be effective at the other. The two go hand in hand. You cannot do what you have to as a father without some balance of doing what you want to. Likewise if you only ever do what you want to, the things you have to do will suffer.

Much bigger fan of “mixie” the cement truck

Obviously balancing the two is tricky even in the simplest of times, which has made the last few weeks even more complicated. Too much focus on doing what you have to do, can be like trying to cut down a tree with a dull blade. Although stepping away from the tree feels like abandoning your primary duty, you are sometimes better off to step away and sharpen the saw.

Steven Covey put forth this idea in his book 7 habits of highly effective people. Sharpening the saw can come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, but should cover physical, mental, emotional, and social aspects.

Sharpening the saw may seem like a luxury only for those with leisure time, but it is an important part of the duty of being a better man and a father. I have always found that I am in a better mood, I think more clearly, and I make better decisions after I have trained, or completed some sort of task that would seen otherwise not mission critical.

While primary focus these last ten weeks has been on providing for the family and guiding them through these uncharted times, that has left an imbalance in doing what you have to vs. doing what you want to. The shutting down of so many activities due to COVID-19, especially ones with a social aspect, makes it ever more difficult for father’s to sharpen the saw in the same ways that they would have before.

In ever changing and difficult times the duty remains, and is more important than ever. It’s vital to remember that a part of that duty is keeping your tools sharp, and in the case of Serenity Through Sweat activities, doing what you want to, and not just what you have to will make you a better husband, father and person.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

This week’s SerenityThroughSweat, sharpening the saw with sewing, swings, and stroller runs. All alliteration aside, stay home status is starting to stagnate

The Importance of Play

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. Today I want to talk about the importance of play. For toddlers, for kids, for parents, for everyone, play is more important now than ever.

El Duderino isn’t really old enough to understand what’s going on in the world, but he is very smart and incredibly perceptive. Most kids pick up on social cues and read the room far better than adults and well beyond what they are given credit for. So when I’m feeling stressed by everything COVID-19 related, he might not understand the nuts and bolts of it, but he reacts to my emotional state.

At the end of the day all he really wants to do is play. Play takes on many different forms depending on the day or mood. The current play du jour is digging in the dirt with his work trucks. Each truck has a name and a job and then when they get dirty they go through the car wash (hose, sink, bath, etc).

The only limit is his imagination, and maybe the weather or daddy’s bladder bringing us inside. That imagination and creativity is the beauty of play. It’s a release from reality and whatever stresses are there, even if they are just picked up from his mother and me. It is mentally stimulating. It helps him grow and come up with new ideas.

I think it’s safe to say most adults struggle with play, especially in the current lack of social climate. How many adult activities leave room for creativity, improvisation, experimentation, and just room to play? Maintaining a balanced approach to overall wellbeing is one of the core tenets of this blog (and one of my top priorities), and play is a huge part of that.

That is one of the many reasons I miss Jiu Jitsu. Running, lifting, cycling, archery, mobility work, have all played a huge roll in my sanity from home over the past weeks. But each of them lack the dynamic playful environment that Jiu Jitsu offers.

Wrestling and Jiu Jitsu offer an incredible mix of physical stressors, mental stimulation, and a plethora of opportunities to be creative and innovative. In other words perfect, a perfect adult play environment. For my brother’s and sisters on the mats you don’t need any further explanation, but for those of you who haven’t ever tried it, I will try to explain as best as I can.

Grappling tends to present itself like human chess. You are always thinking multiple moves ahead (mental stimulation). Each of those moves or techniques requires complex and coordinated physical movement, often under pressure or resistance from your partner (physical stressors). And, there are an endless number of techniques that pair together in different orders, or varitions of those techniques that allow each practitioner to develop his or her own style or “game” (creativity and innovation).

In addition to physical stressors, mental stimulation, and opportunities for creativity and innovation, grappling requires extremely close physical contact. Often times claustrophobia inducing contact. And while this may be an acquired taste, after several weeks of lockdown I think we could all use some claustrophobia inducing contact, whether we are grapplers or not.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

As excited as I am for my local gym (OBJJ) to be opening tomorrow, I will not be in attendance just yet. Speedy hasn’t reached the two month mark yet, and his developing immune system trumps my need for play.

This week in SerenityThroughSweat, El Duderino plays in the mud, does his best salt bae impression baking bread, some interval running, and a sweaty sandbag session.

Common Carriage

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. Studying for my commercial pilots license I remember being especially drawn to the murky idea of common carriage. I think it has a lot of similarities to the murky situation we find ourselves in now as we start to re open the country.

I’ve been told on more than one occasion that I missed my calling to be a lawyer. I enjoy a good heated debate, especially if there is reason, logic, and meritorious points to be made by both sides. I think this is what drew the 20 year old college kid into the idea of common carriage, and why it has stuck with me after 13 odd years despite having little to no relevance in my professional life.

I’ll start by saying I don’t really know what common carriage is because it is an Intentionally unclear regulation, but it was very important that I be able to regurgitate the concept for my commercial pilot check ride. The idea is, when you get a commercial pilots license, you can be paid to fly airplanes. But, you can’t just go around doing business with, and flying anyone who asks, because that would make you a de facto airline, and subject to different standards, procedures, and regulations. So you are left with this intentionally murky grey area where you can have individual contracts for flight services so long as you are not “holding yourself out”

If you are still following along awesome, if not, that’s kind of the point. Individuals can do business with each other because a one on one business relationship places the onus on both parties to vet each other. When providing a service to the entire community, some sort of overseeing body does the vetting, theoretically in the best interest of those being served. In other words, if I’m hiring you to drive my car the responsibility is on me, but if I call an Uber, the department of transportation has made sure (in theory, I don’t know, it’s just an example for those of you not aviation inclined) that the driver and Uber have gone through the appropriate processes and procedures.

As we start to re open our communities to business I think there is a lot of similarities in the murky nature commercial services. Let’s say like most of us you’ve been socially distancing for more than a few weeks and you need a haircut. You happen to have an aunt who is a stylist and she was already coming over for mother’s Day. Can she cut your hair while she visits? Is it ok if you pay her? That’s only one person so it is an “individual contract” not a willingness to cut everyone’s hair.

My dad is a homebrewer, and a quite accomplished one at that. He has brewed beer for countless family gatherings and events, and has been asked to brew beer for friend’s events and weddings. But, he is not allowed to accept payment for brewing beer for those events or weddings, it must be a gift, otherwise he would be distributing alcohol without the proper processes and procedures (established by the governing body in the “best interest” of the community)

Without getting too political (this is normally a fitness and fatherhood blog) I think it is possible for the social contract to be strong enough to remove the need for heavy handed, intentionally murky oversight. If you want to cut hair out of your garage you should be able to, and your customers should know what type of precautions you are taking. If you want to buy someone’s beer, you can ask them about the brewing process to see if the ingredients and cleanliness meet your standards. (And the beer will probably be garbage if it doesn’t anyway)

The onus to take precautionary measures for the good of each other is a concept that should guide business decisions whether it is an individual contract or a community service, and whether it is government mandated or not. I think companies that want to compete moving forward will do so not just in terms of product quality and service, but also cleanliness and safety precautions. Likewise, consumers should be able to make the decision what businesses that want to support based on those same criteria.

All of this is foreign, and there is no playbook, but giving people the freedom to do the right thing, rather than bogging them down with murky regulation is what will help all of us move forward towards Serenity together.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

This week in SerenityThroughSweat, Speedy is 6 weeks old and showing some appreciations for mom and dad’s sleep deprivation. My longest stroller run to date with El Duderino and some much needed projectile meditation.

Happy Mother’s Day

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. Being a father of two sons I spend a lot of time discussing fatherhood, masculinity, and lessons I want to pass on to my boys. With Mother’s Day today, I want to spend some time appreciating the women who shape our lives.

Pilot’s tend to be very mission/task oriented. You wouldn’t want your pilot to say “well folks our flight from NY to LA didn’t go exactly as planned, but we got you to Reno and that’s close enough”. The mission is NY to LA and the expectation is that the professionals up front will deal with whatever complications come up in order to complete the mission safely. That mindset is something I picked up from my mother at a young age.

I remember going to my mom’s office after school and stuffing benefits enrollment package envelopes so that they could go out on time. As a young kid, stuffing envelopes wasn’t the most fun task, and I’m sure I complained just as much as I helped. But, the lesson that you adapt to your situation and complete the mission was clearly there, and looking back, it’s something I’m grateful for.

Finding creative ways to solve problems and take care of your family is about as badass a mom skill as there is.

When we first started dating, one of the many reasons I was initially attracted to my wife was her ability to take on challenges and adapt. Covid-19 has given me even more reason to appreciate the strength and grace of my wife especially in her role as a mother.

Giving birth at home in the middle of a global pandemic (with the midwife still enroute) she made the day seem like any other day with her calm demeanor and poise. She has found the mental bandwidth to work from home, care for our newborn, parent our toddler, and still keep me on my toes when I lose my way. She has navigated the mental headspace of this unusual situation with the strength and grace that only a mother can.

I’m so grateful to have such strong women in my life, and I hope that my sons grow to appreciate them as much as I do. They are tremendous leaders, teachers, and nurturers, and they help everyone the come in contact with get a little closer to Serenity.

Happy Mother’s Day, I love you both.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

This week’s SerenityThroughSweat, stroller runs and social distancing

Value and Balance

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. If you’ve been a reader for any length of time, (thank you) you know that I’m a big proponent of challenging endeavors. Today I want to share my thoughts on the value of those endeavors and the necessary balance that we should gravitate towards.

The bar I built for our wedding, designed to hold kegs in the blue buckets and be mobile.

I think there is value in doing difficult things above and beyond the obvious intrinsic rewards. Whether it is learning a new skill, competing in a race or grappling event, or finishing a project at work, when we challenge ourselves we grow as humans. Challenging endeavors offer us the chance to grow our skill set, learn about ourselves, and foster a resilience that carries over to other endeavors.

COVID-19 obviously presents its own unique set of challenges, that give us an opportunity to grow. For me personally, I have been driven towards pursuits in self sufficiency. One of the things I’ve always appreciated about wrestling and Jiu Jitsu, is the sense of calm I have in most everyday encounters because of the confidence in my training. I don’t see a downside to that kind of training, or that kind of self assuredness. But, what about other forms of self sufficiency?

DIY plumbing to retrofit a kegerator into the bar I built for my wedding, and resize it to live inside

Jiu Jitsu is it’s own form of magic, but it isn’t going to feed my family of four the way say, gardening, hunting, or fishing would. These endeavors meet all of the criteria we have discussed; difficult, check, value in self sufficiency, you bet, learn something about your self, absolutely. So where is the down side? Here is where the balance comes in to play.

Resized and redesigned to facilitate swapping kegs and cleaning lines. It still needs some trim work, but it’s fully functional

As we continue through week fifty-leven of lockdown, the economy, especially small businesses are hurting. Small business is a term that can be glossed over more easily than say “mom and pop”. Mom and pop, families, are the ones that are hurting. Unfortunately, many endeavors of self sufficiency are a zero sum game. In other words, if I’m providing veggies for my family in a back yard garden, that’s one less purchase at the farmers market.

Any sort of DIY trade work falls into this category as well. Plumbing, flooring, electric, HVAC, landscaping, the list goes on. Most trade work is either done by Mom and Pop companies, or the craftsman themselves are working class bread winners for a larger company. There is value in any difficult DIY project, above and beyond the finished product, but there is a balance to be found in how far we lean in to total self sufficiency and isolation.

I don’t know what the answer is, or where the right balance lies. That’s the tricky thing about balance right, it’s not a fixed point. If you’ve ever walked on balance beam or even just an elevated curb, you need to adjust with every step forward. Self sufficiency and supporting local businesses and trades are not mutually exclusive, but it is a precarious relationship that needs constant balancing. I think COVID-19 has shown us the value in being more self sufficient when things go awry. It has also shown us how much we miss all those mom and pop establishments when they are taken away from us. A lot will change as we make our way through this global challenge into a new normal. Walking the path to serenity requires determining value and constantly seeking balance.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

This week’s SerenityThroughSweat, a few simple and sinister kettlebell sessions and a stroller run with El Duderino. The cumulative sleep debt staying up with speedy is starting to take its toll, but I always feel better after a good sweat.