I was reminded by my father that I had not posted a blog in over a month. I have had numerous thoughts about what to write. I just couldn’t seem to find the time to sit down and write. I have had some major changes at work, the Jewish High Holidays and I am taking a class at my Temple most Sundays. Regardless, I enjoy the writing process. I just need to set aside the time and be more disciplined. It dawned on me that I have been having to submit journal entries as part of my class assignments. I decided to share one with you.
Since it was recently the High Holidays where Jews focus on the process of teshuvah (repentance), whereby a Jew admits to sins, asks for forgiveness, and resolves not to repeat the sins in the future, I wanted to share my journal from this week. Recognizing the psychological difficulty of self-examination and personal change, our rabbis instituted a 40-day period whose intensity increases toward its culmination on Yom Kippur, a day devoted entirely to fasting and repentance. Our assignment for our journal was to write about how we mark time, define holiness and what is ordinary and extraordinary in our lives. It was a tough assignment but what better way to reflect on where we have come up short this past year.
During the 40 days leading up to Yom Kippur, I reflect on the year I have lived. I imagine that each year moves along in a predictable, linear fashion. But that is not true when it comes to being Jewish. If I look at the secular calendar, months and days are the same each year. But in my Jewish life, the calendar is always changing. All our holidays seem to come at unexpected moments and places on the calendar. I sometimes find myself forgetting that a holiday is coming as they move around on the secular calendar. They are seemingly out-of-sync with my secular life.
But in truth time is fluid. So, I mark time in two ways. First, I mark time using the marriage of the secular and Jewish calendars. I focus on the secular calendar for work and my everyday life to know what is coming next. The secular calendar allows me to schedule my training runs and other events in my life. At the same time, I track my time based on the Jewish calendar. As each holiday approaches and I look at the Jewish calendar, I am reminded that I am part of something bigger – the Jewish people. And the holidays bring back a lot of memories and hopes in an accordioned knot of the past, present, and future.
Second, I see time in my children. If I were to wake up and never look in a mirror, I would never feel like I am any older or different than I was at 17. Sure, I have had a lot of experiences over the years. But they seem to all compress into one continuous timeline. It is only when I see my kids that I truly see how much time has passed. My son’s 10th High School Reunion is next year, and he is getting married. My daughter is now a professional tenant rep broker in the same real estate business I am in. Yet it seems like only yesterday when I started my real estate career at Taco Bell.
When I think about marking time, I always go back to one of my favorite quotes, ““Time is relative. In human life, time is experience. The faster you archive a significant experience to your memory, the more you live in the same clock time. In physics, experience is represented by the distance traveled, and this entire thing is called the Relativity of Time. I want to age and die through archiving my experiences, not watching my biological clock. Please don't waste my clock time with mediocrity and egotism, let me use it towards service to others.” (Alper Mazun). The only thing I would change in this quote is to say that I want to age and die after living my life experiences to their fullest and leaving the world in a better condition than when I came into it.
If I am going to leave this world better than I found it, I should strive to lead a holy life. During my conversion classes, I was taught that the Hebrew word kadosh translates to “holy” and comes from a term meaning “separate.” Perhaps that is the way the Jews in the past viewed being holy. A holy Jew kept himself separate from the profane or sins of others. I would like to think that what holy really means is connection with others. Leading a life focused on social ethics. Finding ways to help those who are less fortunate than me. The Torah tells us to befriend others. “You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you yourselves were strangers in the land of Egypt" and “You too must befriend the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt”. Living an ethical life is one step on the path to holiness. If we are truly created in God’s image, then I believe we should strive to reach higher in our daily lives. We should strive to always do right when faced with dilemmas. When we are intentional in acknowledging the depth of beauty in the world we live in and truly connect to others in a meaningful and helpful way then maybe we are more like the God that resides within us. That is what being holy means to me.
If I am a holy person, I must be able to separate the ordinary and extraordinary in my life. After much contemplation, I have come to the realization that I must find the extraordinary in the ordinary yet seemingly mundane things in my life. What do I mean? It’s simple. When things are not necessarily going the way I want them to go, I try to find something in the process that is going well. In this way I can be gratified and be more present in the moment. Thus, truly experiencing the world around me. I want to be fully engaged in what I am experiencing and try to find something awesome about it. If I go out for a training run in the morning and can’t seem to get into the pace or head space I need to be in to complete the scheduled effort, I simply look around me and enjoy the fact that I can still run outside in a beautiful place. I can enjoy the fact that my body is allowing me to be on the road running.
When I was younger, I always felt that I was just leading an ordinary life. I would work hard, spend time with my family, watch TV, maybe go to the movies, etc. I believed that I was not going to leave a mark on this world. As I have aged, I realized that everyone lives extraordinary lives. I just had to change my point of view. I must pay attention to the good things in life and simply be grateful for what I have, rather than wish for more money or a nicer car or six pack abs. Once I started to practice gratitude in my daily life, I started to see that I am leading an extraordinary life and that I am leaving my mark on the world through all the family and friends who I share my life with.
Sept 9 – 5.10 miles (1:02:51, 12:21 pace) – Hill Repeats
Sept 13 – 3.10 miles (28:14, 9:06 pace)
Sept 14 – 5.10 miles (49:56, 9:47 pace)
Sept 15 – 7.30 miles (1:09:36, 9:32 pace)
Sept 16 – 4.10 miles (51:08, 12:29 pace) – Hill Repeats
Sept 19 – 4.10 miles (38:59, 9:30 pace)
Sept 20 – 3.40 miles (32:01, 9:01 pace)
Sept 22 – 4.50 miles (42:00, 9:20 pace)
Sept 23 – 4.50 miles (55:34, 12:21 pace) – Hill Repeats
Sept 24 – 4.10 miles (39:23, 9:37 pace)
Sept 26 – 3.10 miles (27:10, 8:46 pace)
Sept 28 – 7.10 miles (1:07:41, 9:32 pace)
Sept 29 – 7.40 miles (1:10:18, 9:30 pace)
Sept 30 – 5.20 miles (1:00:14, 11:35 pace) – Hill Repeats
Oct 1 – 6.30 miles (53:35, 8:30 pace) – Speed Work
Oct 3 – 3.50 miles (32:00, 9:07 pace)
Oct 4 – 4.20 miles (39:46, 9:28 pace)
Oct 6 – 10.40 miles (1:35:48, 9:13 pace)
Oct 7 – 6.10 miles (1:07:28, 11:04 pace) – Hill Repeats
Oct 8 – 6.20 miles (53:20, 8:36 pace) – Speed Work
Oct 10 – 7.70 miles (1:08:11, 8:51 pace) – Tempo Run
Oct 11 – 4.20 miles (33:18, 9:09 pace)
Oct 12 – 7.10 miles (1:06:29, 9:22 pace)
Oct 13 – 7.50 miles (1:08:43, 9:10 pace)
Oct 14 – 5.10 miles (56:45, 11:08 pace) – Hill Repeats
Oct 15 – 6.30 miles (53:19, 8:27 pace) – Speed Work
Oct 17 – 8.30 miles (1:13:14, 8:49 pace) – Tempo Run
Oct 18 – 4.10 miles (37:03, 9:02 pace)
Oct 19 – 6.20 miles (54:36, 8:48 pace)
Oct 20 – 7.10 miles (1:04:52, 9:08 pace)
Total Miles: 168.40 miles
2019 Total Miles: 1,310.47 miles
