I have unexpectedly found myself face to face with many truths over the past few weeks. As the title of this post implies it has hurt...a lot! But one of the amazing things I have found is that while the truth does in fact hurt sometimes, I have also experienced something unexpected. That unexpected thing is a sense of relief. I admit that this sense of relief took me by surprise a little bit, so much so that I began asking myself what is "truth" anyway?
A quick wikipedia search tells me that "Truth can have a variety of meanings, such as the state of being in accord with a particular fact or reality, or being in accord with the body of real things, real events or actualities". Well, I guess this information gets me a little closer to understanding, but what about the truth is so important?
Before I reveal where I found the answer I have to share a few things. I can't say that I have taken part regularly in organized religion, however I do consider myself a spiritual person. I believe in God and in Evolution (yes it has taken a while for me to sort that kind of thing out in my own head). I also don't believe that all things happen simply by chance. So I can't say that I am surprised by where I found the answer, but I can say that I feel comforted by it...The Bible says, "The truth shall make you free."
That was it...the relief I experienced through learning some difficult truths was in fact freedom.
Although it would go far beyond the bounds of this post to discuss the truths I refer to above, they are in fact someone else's truths and not mine to share. But I am willing to share one, not so deep and dark secret, I experienced for myself.
As I sat working the other day I overheard a few of the guys I work with were discussing a common topic in our workplace...training for ultra endurance events. As usual I found myself getting sucked into the conversation...I mean come on, who wants to do work when you can talk about something more interesting!? In any event, when it was time for me to put my 2-cents into the conversation the words that came out of my mouth sounded like alarm bells in my ears. The words that set off those alarms sounded a little something like this..."well when I did an ultramarathon". I quickly saw a picture of Al Bundy in my brain reciting "it was like the time I scored four touchdowns "in a single game" for Polk High in the championship game, including the game-winning touchdown in the final seconds". Oh, and the song "Glory Days" was playing in the background too, in my mind at least!
Ugh...what a schmuck I sound like and have sounded like as I can recall so many conversations where I have done the same thing. Yes, the truth hurts!
So this week I was reminded that in order to Thrive...what you have done in the past doesn't matter nearly as much as what you are going to do in the future and that's a truth that doesn't hurt!
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