THE SCENE: 66 and clear
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER: Skipped
WARM-O-RAMA:
OYO while the workout is explained
THA THANG:
IPC Week 2: Four rounds for time
Round 1: (8 burpees + sprint) x 11
Round 2: (8 squrls + CMU carry) x 11
Round 3: (88 shoulder presses + rifle carry) repeat
Round 4: (88 x-factors + bear crawl) + (88 x-factors + crawl bear)
MARY:
Nope
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
9 of the best men I know
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
This morning, the JUCO flag was planted at 863 feet above sea level. As we stood there, I asked…
“Do you ever fantasize about doing something exceptional and heroic?” I do. If only I had the chance, I would…rescue my kid as they are getting pulled out to sea by a riptide…I’d whip the pants off of some goon who’s broken into my home in the middle of the night…I’d grab the arm of an old woman just before she’s clobbered by a greyhound bus… If I ever get the chance, I could be great.
“Do you ever worry that your life and legacy will be defined by the stupidest thing(s) you’ve done?” I do. I didn’t mean to yell at the kids… I never thought I’d do… What a mistake it was to…
but…
“It is not the billows, but the calm level of the sea, from which all heights and depths are measured.” – James Garfield
Mt. Everest (29,032’), Clingmans Dome (6,644’), and the JUCO parking lot (863’) are each measured from the sea at its average – not from the massive crest of a wave in a storm – nor by the lowest trough between two waves. Like the sea, I believe that your life is better measured not by the exceptional, but by the typical. Your best chance at living a life of high-impact is not to wait for your heroic moment (which, in all likelihood will never come) – but to concentrate on living TODAY as a high-impact man.
Today, be an encourager to the people you are around.
Today, live with integrity in everything you do.
Today, be generous with your time and resources.
Today, be patient and slow to anger.
Today, be faithful to your wife with your thoughts and your eyes.
Today, show resolve in the face of your challenges.
Today, be kind to those whom you love as well as those who have wronged you.
Today, you can be that great man that we would all love to be and to know.
Do it again tomorrow and all the tomorrows after that – and you’ll be well on your way to being a HIM.
MOLESKIN:
You want to know the crazy story behind that James Garfield quote?
We pick up the tale at the 1880 Republican National Convention. There are a series of presidential nominees being presented for Convention’s selection. It is a long and boring ceremony…until the flamboyant New York Congressman, Roscoe Conklin, gets up and gives a rousing speech nominating none other than the Civil War Hero, Ulysses S. Grant. The crowd goes nuts. The convention is in pandemonium.
How would you like to be the follow-up act to that? The very next speaker is the relatively unknown congressman, James Garfield – he’s there to present the nomination of his fellow Congressman from Ohio, John Sherman. When he gets up, the crowd is still chanting, “Grant, Grant, Grant!”.
He tosses aside his prepared speech and begins with a word of praise for Grant. Then he says this –
“…as I sat in my seat and witnessed this demonstration, this assemblage seemed to me a human ocean in tempest. I have seen the sea lashed into fury and tossed into spray, and its grandeur moves the soul of the dullest man; but I remember that it is not the billows, but the calm level of the sea, from which all heights and depths are measured.” He is comparing the crowd to the raging ocean – but noted that all heights on the earth are measured from the level sea. It was his plea to decide on a nominee based on logic, not passion.
Know what happened? The crowd was so impressed that the Convention ended up nominating…James Garfield. Against his will! He passionately appealed to them NOT to nominate him – and through each of the primaries, kept casting his own vote for John Sherman. Ha! The general election was held, and Garfield won the presidency – the whole time objecting to his own candidacy. To my knowledge, he is only one of two men who were given the presidency against their own expressed desire —- the other being who, BB reader? (I bet WaxJob knows…)
Garfield was brilliant and tremendously credentialed. After the end of the civil war, our nation needed a leader for the ages. Had he not been shot a mere 100 days into his presidency; he very well may have gone down in history as one of our nation’s greatest leaders. This Sunday marks 120 years from the premature death of one of our nation’s might-have-been-greatest presidents.