Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This past weekend we had a 6ft gator lurking around our backyard. It got me thinking about what other threats are lurking.
I was especially ready to hit the heavy bag on Saturday. My wife had a hernia repair at the beginning of the week. That left me dealing with a rambunctious 3 year old El Duderino, and a nonpliant newly toddling Speedy, neither of which were ready for a week without mommy snuggles.
I first noticed the gator when I started to hang the heavy bag. The heavy bag seemed to be a magnet, drawing the gator to the water’s surface in the middle of the lake, and then swimming a beeline to the lake’s edge at the foot of my backyard.
With a gator at the water’s edge, I thought about my level of risk aversion, especially while wearing boxing gloves and hand wraps, and being focused on my workout rather than the reptile. The threat was lurking, was I comfortable with it, and was there anything I could do to be more prepared?
Ultimately, it was the thumping of the heavy bag waking up Speedy that ended my workout, not our neighborhood gator. I found myself with my sweat cut short and my serenity still lacking.
My blood still pumping from the first five rounds, my patience worn thin from a challenging week, and now an interrupted sweat session, blinded me to the threat that had been lurking closer and closer throughout the week, my temper.
My wife did not deserve my frustration, but she was the recipient. My boys did nothing out of the ordinary to precipitate my descent from mostly calm fatherhood, but nevertheless there is was.
The threat (my temper) had been building all week, lurking below the surface, and was finally exposed by the accumulation of minutiae.
An old boss and friend you used to tell me “this business is full of traps, what is the trap that is going to get you?”. He wasn’t referring to parenthood or marriage, but I think it applies equally to both.
This week the trap was one of my own making, born out of my inadequacies. To my wife and boys I am sorry. This week I fell short of serenity. But, as El Duderino often says, “maybe we could try again tomorrow to make the good choice”.
Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.
