It's not the one thing......

I have always loved figure skating. My earliest memory is sitting with my mother, watching Peggy Fleming skate across the screen of our old black and white TV. I used to put socks on and slide around our linoleum floor pretending I was the next Olympic figure skating champion. I think living in the desert made the sport seem so mysterious and glamerous. I had never seen a pair of ice skates or an ice rink, for that matter. And while none of this has anything to do with the theme for this post, what started my thinking process did and I thought I would share a long forgotten childhood memory. So there you have it....the randomness that is me. Onward.....

I was watching a program about Scott Hamilton (see, there was a link, however small). All about his comeback after brain surgery and a five year hiatus from skating. It was inspiring. During the show he talked about facing something he had never faced before. While practicing, if he made a mistake in the program, he would quit skating. He had never done this before in his career. He knew it was fear and he was having a difficult time figuring out how to work through the fear.

I experience this a lot in my own life. I have a problem with anxiety. It keeps me from living life to it's fullest measure. It's the one thing I really dislike about myself and would like to change.

During the program Scott mentioned a saying that he used to get himself over the fear and to stop quitting. "It's not the one thing...it's the whole thing." Meaning that if he made a mistake it didn't ruin the whole program because there were many more elements in the program than just that one jump or just that one spin.

It got me thinking. I could apply this in my own life. Many times the "one thing" will keep me from enjoying the "whole thing". So many times I get caught up in some thing that is making me anxious and I forget the big picture. How will this affect me in a week, a month, a year, five years? When you stop to put things into the context of your "whole" life, the "one" thing doesn't seem so big.

So I've decided to live my life like I'm figure skating. And if I fall on that triple Lutz, I'll just get back up and do a triple toe loop. All the while reciting my new mantra...."It's not the one thing...it's the whole thing."

Here's to new beginnings......