I continue to be in love with surfing. Absolutely, head-over-hills, can't-imagine-not-being-into-it, don't-know-what-life-before-it-was-like sort of thing!
In short, I do truly love it.
I love it so much that I could be really tired after a long day and my body tells me I really need to relax and instead I get my equipment out, put it on the great Thule rack I got last summer, and, vroom, 23 minutes later I'm frolicking in the Pacific Ocean!
I knew early on that in order to truly commit to something, I had to give my full attention and commitment to it. I knew that I had to invest in it. I had to make it important. And how do you make something important? You invest time and resources and you make it matter. Check, check, and check! Accountability to one's self is necessary when it comes to any pursuit of value. And this pursuit definitely holds much value for me.
When I truly got into it, I bought the entire equipment and had my car entirely outfitted for surfing and paddle boarding purposes. I knew that if I wanted to truly get into it, I had to make myself available. In sum, I was making myself available to this new relationship. Because, in all honesty, this is a commitment.
One of the reasons why I work out as much as I do and I run 10km every day is so that I'm fit enough for surfing and paddle boarding. In a way, running is a means to an end. This fact alone is enough to keep me centered and focused on this sport. What gives me pleasure when I'm in the Pacific is not the fact that I'm letting the wind take me places and move about.
No, what gives me pleasure is that I allowed myself to do all the work - and a lot of work it is! - to get to deserve this sport. I put this in a paragraph of its own because I reckoned it deserved to be in one.
I've been athletically inclined my whole life. And I've loved bodies of water my whole life. But nothing quite compares to surfing. And I had to live well over 3 decades to get to this realization.
So this summer, find something you've always wanted to do and make space and time for it in your life.
1. Make it important.
2. Make room for it in your life.
3. Invest in it.
If you don't, you won't do it. Nothing gets done well unless there's some vested interest in it.
Trust me, you won't regret doing so. My life is wonderfully rich in part because of this activity. And I can't wait till the next day or dusk so I can do the same thing again and again and again.
Because that's what you do with that which you love. You feel compelled to do it repeatedly.
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