Shortly after first period one fall day in ninth grade, I approached Coach Snyder, our junior high school’s head football coach …
Me: “Coach Snyder, I’m feel pretty sick. I think I’m going to go home, and I’ll have to miss practice.”
Coach: After looking at me to make sure I wasn’t deathly ill, “Ok Peterson. You’ll have to miss the starting line-up this Saturday, too.”
Me: “Ok, I’ll make it to practice.”
So, I called my mom, checked out of school, and rode my bike home. I heard somewhere that one could “sweat out” a cold. I headed to the bathroom, turned on the hot water in the shower, closed the doors, and sat in the very tight room with my heavy winter jacket wrapped around me until I was profusely sweating. I don’t remember if I felt better or not, but I dutifully rode my bike back to school during seventh period, snuck into the bike racks and walked to the locker room for practice like any other day. But it wasn’t any other day.
A couple practices per season, Coach Snyder would have us run the train. All 50 of us would line up in a single-file line and jog around the perimeter of our practice field. When the whistle blew, the player in the very back would sprint to the front. It was brutal.
When it was my turn to sprint up front … you can probably guess what happened. I lost my lunch, but I kept running. Coach Snyder yelled “Petey, drop out.” I kept running. “Peterson, drop out.” I kept running and now had reached the front of the line. “Peterson dammit, drop out.” This time, he was screaming and swearing. So, I dropped out and took a knee. Ten seconds later Coach Snyder approached me from behind and tapped the back of my helmet two times and kept walking. I remember the feeling of his tapping like it happened a minute ago. It was his way of saying: “Good work.”
Coach Snyder tested me that day. I passed. I pushed past pain that I never felt before that afternoon. That test, and hundreds of others, have made me who I am today.
So, here’s my question for you: Who is testing you today? If you’re like most people, no one. Maybe your boss is holding you accountable, or your kids are pushing your patience, but who is testing you? Who is inspiring you to enter the arena and experience the pain that is necessary to live your best life? Every now and then, life will test us and bring out our best, but not on a week-to-week basis. Guess what? You better start testing yourself, or you’re going to end up living a life that may fall short of what you want.
Test yourself to go beyond places you ever dreamed. I use running. Even though I work out six times a week, including three runs, I use one day – my long run day – to really test myself. My other five workouts are real workouts, but they don’t give me the emotional challenge of my long run. During the last 15 minutes of this run, I have thousands of voices screaming to quit. I have to ignore them and invite the pain. I have to choose the pain. When I do, I finish and live on those endorphins for hours. When I finish, I pass my test and I live the life I’ve always wanted to live the rest of the week.
So again, who is testing you?
