Way back in February 2011 I wrote a blog post on Inspiration after having watched “Dead Poet’s Society” for the first time. I encourage you to take a bit of time and go back to read it, as this post is the opposite side of the coin, if you will.

Done? Excellent.

That blog post, of course, talks about much of what inspired me at the time. Now, not so much time has past that the same things don’t work for me, but enough repetitions have been made of writing and teaching to have learned from further lessons. I will address the teaching lessons quickly here first as they are much shorter, indeed further repetitions have honed my abilities to convey information well while also maintaining student interest. I have received two sets of evaluations from students since that time and have been very proud of the overwhelming positive results they have produced. The phrase “I wish he taught all my classes” has actually shown up more than once, and I have the photocopies to prove it.

Writing, on the other hand, has become somewhat of a cruel mistress (not a literal one Jess, don’t worry) in that having undertaken the challenge I have chose has at times driven me from inspiration to desperation. I mentioned how the blank screen inspired me before, but now looking at a blank blog post puts a bit of fear in me. Having the footer around helps, I paste that in and update it first thing on every blog post so the page is not completely blank to begin with. I have a list of subjects in Evernote, but many of them are to detailed for me to write about in my break times or would require some background work that I’m unwilling to do at the time. Once I have selected a topic the familiar feeling comes back and there is joy in the spilling over of sentences and paragraphs, but that initial trepidation kind of grows the more topics I have put in my rear view mirror.

At times I find myself wishing I had picked a less ambitious goal, perhaps merely blogging during the week and not being responsible for the weekends. I remind myself, however, that this is a challenge and, had it been easy why bother doing it? The divide between desperation and inspiration is less of a line and more like the one time I went off a high dive.

It was the summer between my Junior and Senior years of high school and I was out in Mission Viejo for the yearly USATF decathlon with our coach and several other teammates. The school the event was held at had its own pool, and the maintenance staff let us use it in the afternoon after the first days events were over. Those that know me know that I am not a fan of unsupported heights and learned to swim later in my childhood due to a deep end mishap as a kid (yes, my memories of it were far worse than it actually was, but it took me a while to get over it), but for some reason I climbed the high dive to see what I could see. Deciding that it wasn’t my scene, I started to back towards the ladder when one of the Senior girls yelled, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!” Rather than giving her a lesson in context and attempting to rebut her argument, I muttered, “I hate you” (I know, such a proper attitude, right?) and jumped. I penciled in and the whole thing was over in a second, resurfacing to a couple cheers.

Oh, right, so the line between desperation and inspiration is more like the high dive, you can spend all your time up on the platform being worried about what’s going to happen, or you can jump in and figure it out on the way down, hopefully being rewarded with a cooling splash and not the concrete bottom of an empty pool.

P.S. I’m disappointed that I was in high school just before the world wide web became the repository for statistics so I can’t look up my old academic and athletic decathlon results. I’m sure I have them written down somewhere but the web would be sooooo much easier. ::end whine::

Weight: 233.4 Max: 240 Min: 233.4 Body Fat %: 24.7
Yearly Mileage: 52.7 miles (+2 miles)
Current Belt: Orange – Next Belt: Blue – Next Test Date: 5/12
Fitocracy Level: 15 (23412 points, 562/3500 to next level) – ID: disciplev1
Soccer – Last Game: L, 7-11 (Record: 0-2) Next Game: 3/11, 9:10 pm