When I was coaching at Northwestern there was a player that spoke to the team and asked the question, "What's your why?" She was curious what peoples motivation was. Why did they get out of bed every day? Pursue the goals and dreams they had set? What motivated them? It wasn't the first time I had heard that question asked but it was the first time I truly pondered that question and haven't stopped pondering that question since.
The question was first asked a few years ago and boy has life changed since then! As life continued to change my possible why continued to change as well. To be honest I have had a really hard time answering that question. Why did I exercise as much as I did? Why did I take the job that I took out of college? Why did I decide to get into coaching? I tried to come up with super motivating answers to that question that would go viral and motivate people for generations. Spoiler alert, I didn't come up with anything motivational. As my life has changed over the last year I have wrestled a lot with my why.
I was sitting in Bible study with a couple of guys last Friday and we started talking about fitness and working out. Two guys said they worked out to "be healthier" but really it was to gain confidence in their appearance. They wanted to look just as good as they felt after working out. I was fairly quiet during this time so they proceeded to ask my about fitness. They asked if being a "really fit dude" gave me confidence to take on MS since being active is huge in the battle against MS. I started off very surface level and told them that being fairly fit prior to my diagnosis has really helped me. I believe I caught symptoms earlier than most people notice problems. I believe that being fit is the reason I was diagnosed at age 25. And I believe being fit is a major part of why, one year since my diagnosis, I have clean MRI scans that show no disease progression. The treatment I am on also plays a vital role but I believe my fitness has as well. But after that I decided to go a little deeper into my battle, if you will, with fitness.
I am incredibly competitive, you probably know this already, and it drove a lot of my fitness through high school, college, and a few years after college. Once I was done with soccer I was itching for competition so I decided to pursue triathlons. It was something that was new, exciting, and pushed me like crazy! It was also something that I could always improve upon. I could always race against my previous times if nothing else. I exercised because I enjoyed the challenge of something like a triathlon. Then my most significant attacked happened and exercise went from something I did to push myself to something I did to fight off a debilitating autoimmune disease. That was hard to except. So I told my small group, "Exercising has changed big time for me. I enjoy going to workout and enjoy the challenge of getting as fit as I possibly can but I really exercise because I have to. I exercise because I don't want to see what happens to me if I don't." Saying that out loud was something that helped me to finally face that reality and made me once again, ponder my why. Why did I exercise? There has to be a better reason for me to wake up at 5am and exercise than "because I have to."
Due to Lauren's work schedule I come home a little early on Monday and Wednesdays so she can get to work. It gives me a great opportunity to spend quality time with my kids and I was playing with them up in Hudson's bedroom. We were wrestling on the bed and I had both kids on their back and was tickling their stomachs. They were absolutely loving it and as I stared down at them my why hit me like a ton of bricks. These two amazing, energetic, loving, rambunctious kids were my why. Carter was born shortly after my diagnosis so I have had two whys for nearly the whole time I have been diagnosed yet I never connected the dots. It is amazing how God's timing is. I don't connect the dots on my kids being my why until I really start battling with how something I have loved and enjoyed doing nearly my whole life, "just because" has now become a "must do". As I pondered that in my head God puts two kids laughing and squealing kids right in front of me. It was truly one of my favorite days in awhile.
Will there be a time when they ask questions about my condition? Of course there will be, that isn't something I can control. What I can control is my effort to be in a position where I can do whatever they want to do for as long as they want to do it. Why do I get up at 5am nearly every day of the week? So I can come home after work every day of the week and spend it living life with my kids. What greater why is there?
I have never done this before but I am going to hopefully get some reader interaction. I love hearing about other people and their why so how would you answer the question. What is your why?
Take Heart John 16:33