Pie On Top

 Being "on top" is a metaphor that never needs explaining, we all know what it means. 
 It sometimes seems our whole life is about getting to the top. We are encouraged to be at the top of our class, beginning with kindergarten to make sure we are in the top few chosen to attend a top university.
  Given a piece of higher ground, whether a pile of dirt, a baseball mound, or a uneven sidewalk or path, kids (boys in particular) will begin a game of King of the Hill, or being on top, up higher,over the others.
  Be your best, work your hardest, play with intensity and never settle for being less than on top.  Athletes are continually training, physically and mentally to remain at the top of their game. So it is in the business/ work world always pushing for the top.
  The top is always farther along. Higher up than it looks. Harder to attain. When you do attain it, according to society, you will experience fulfillment. You will be able to see the whole world below you and know you have made it, made it to the top, to the tip top of....what? 
 American culture tells us that making it to the top of life means working toward the day when being on top will no longer matter. The term for this is "retirement", and whether you are talking to a newly graduated college student, or the parent who has just got that student (their last) through college, they have the same goal make it to the top. Work hard, retire on top. 
 I too have had those aspirations and have thought if I could just get a little higher on the salary chart, be a little higher on the seniority list and be an employee of high value, I could plan to make it to retirement. I could stand on top to that mountain representing my lifetime of accomplishments and look down on all the other people still struggling to get to the top and know I had lived the American dream.
  I have been on track for that day for the past 25 years, and the plan was even accelerating to come true perhaps three to five years earlier than I had planned. Retire at 60, or at least change directions. That would put me on top. 
  Well, here's the real world. I have made it to the top. It's wasn't as far as I thought it would be. Because my employer, despite my goals, has it own goals of how to get to the top of the business world and it no longer includes me and my goal. The top came about 3 years before I expected it. 
   So here I am, at the top of this hill where the path ends. Many might think it's not the top, but the edge of the cliff, but I'm seeing it more as the place from which to scout the future. I think that from this vantage point, I may be able to see more of the possibilities than I might have had this happened 10 years ago. Back then I farther down the hill, hacking my way through the wilderness to the top. 
 I'm going to take this opportunity to look around, get the spotting scope and the binoculars, heck, maybe even the telescope and see what possibilities abound.  
  What will my encore be. 
  I am thinking of the motto or mantra I have quoted often, "Life is short, eat dessert first!"
   I believe I'll sit here on the hill a while and have some pie. 

  Peace my friends. 

Eat, Pray, Run, Repeat. Race (bibs)

 My daughter-in-law made this cool sign and race bib holder for me. She must think this is all I do. Maybe because these are the things I talk about most. Hmm.
Of the 3, I need to eat less, pray more and run, repeats, 800's or some nonsense like that.
The three do tie together in a nice package though and are really representative of everyday life. Each day we must eat, each day we will pray, probably in some way and sometimes each day seems like runnning a racing to the end of life.
But I find if I balance it out, it's not a race against anyone else, just me trying to get to the finish of another day, finish off another problem, have another conversational prayer with God and try to eat another meal before some makes me start wearing a bib.
Life is good and tomorrow, I'll repeat.
Peace my friends.

Athlete? No, just a runner, thank you.

   I started running while in college. I was encouraged by my friend Al, who as a ROTC student was required to do these "PT" test deals. So every once in a while he would say, "We gotta go run, PT next week!" and we would go. Starting at the Freddy dorm on the SMS campus, we would make a 3 mile loop around Phelps Grove Park, and would come to a wheezing finish. I waited for Al to do other physical things, like push ups and hand over hand ladder deal. None of which I could or wanted to do.
   I am not an athlete. In high school I was the asthmatic student basketball manager who washed and carried uniforms and kept stats. I didn't particularly like athletes, but I did like watching cheerleaders...but I digress.
  Later as an adult I discovered that if I paced myself and used an inhaler (I know steroid enhancement) I could walk and then run. I started running the 1 mile to work. In my small hometown, I was viewed as "weird". The only sports our school had were basketball, baseball and volleyball. To each of which running was punishment, not training.  Finally the school added track and cross country, but by now I was a full grown man, running around and biking, that was just not right (this is the 1970s').
  One year at the local fall festival, the cross country coach put on a 5k. I think there were 15 people. I finished 3 or 4th, I think, second adult behind the coach and way ahead of all the old athletes who thought it was a stupid thing anyway. So there athletes! Ha!
  Then I started running to relieve stress, 5 miles 1 or 2 times a week. This helped me keep my mind clear.
  Then I changed jobs and moved my family to a strange place (Kansas) met another guy who ran to relieve stress and have been being weird ever since (1987).
  When people find out that I run, many are in awe (well, maybe astonishment) that I am an athlete. I remind them I am not an athlete, I'm just a guy who runs, not a lot, not fast, and for sure not smart.
  But they insist that compared to the average person, I am an athlete. So, okay, whatever you want to call me.
  My view of an athlete is someone who follows a plan to get better. Me, not so much.
  I just run. I follow my own path. I don't stretch. I don't eat right. I don't go to races to win. I don't run everyday. Heck, sometimes I don't run in a week. I buy cheap shoes. But that's okay for me, 'cause I'm not an athlete, my paycheck doesn't depend on my performance, only my mental state.
  So if you see me at a race,I don't really want to share what my expected finish time is, finishing on my feet in an upright position is satisfactory.
And for the record, I really don't have a desire to run 'til I puke, ever.
And don't forget that running is more that racing, and competing. Running is what "idiots" do for fun. If it ain't fun....you must be an athlete.

Peace, my friends!