Finding A Purpose

I've always liked Robert Frost, but to quote a puppet, yes, a puppet, from one of my favorite musicals, Avenue Q, "Purpose. It's that little flame that lights a fire under your ass. Purpose. It keeps you going strong like a car with a full tank of gas."


I believe we are all striving to find a purpose for our life. Whether it be through our career choices, our decisions to raise a family or the actions we take to help others. 


Whenever you meet someone new, one of the first questions that will be asked is "What do you do?" This is your chance to pretty much validate your existence on this Earth. I've been noticing this more because last week, I joined the over 14 million Americans who are unemployed. Only days after I was given my invitation to join the ranks of the jobless, I also found myself at a reunion with several of my college friends. I found myself saying, "Well, up until Tuesday, I did this..," every time this question was posed. But what now. It's time to move on. It's time to a find a new purpose and it's scary but also exciting. I've also found that even when it comes to exercising, most of us need a purpose to really get our butts off the couch.

Take the families on Jillian Michael's new show, "Losing It," for example. (By the way, if you aren't watching the show, you should be!) Before she puts any of them on a treadmill, she makes them meet with her doctor, where the parents learn that if they do not lose the excess weight they are carrying they will no longer be there for their children. Anytime throughout the exhausting workout sessions that they are close to quitting she reminds them of the purpose of what they are doing and they always recommit to the exercise they are doing and even take it up a notch.


I have decided to set a new goal for myself and by finding a purpose to keep me focused and motivated I hope to achieve it.


"I could run 26.2 miles," I told my friend, the soon to be famous actress Tristin Daley, last year when she said she had signed up for her first marathon. "I would just need about a week to do it and you'd need to let me break it up into several 5-mile daily workouts."

At that time I saw no point to subjecting your body to the torture of pounding the pavement for 26 consecutive miles and then some. It sounded insane and impossible to do unless you were an extreme athlete or from Kenya. Plus, growing up, I never understood the draw of track. Sure, I ran, but I did it while driving a soccer ball toward a net or rounding the bases on a softball field. There was a purpose to the running, and with my mind focused on the game, I didn't really have the chance to observe the fact that I was running, my legs were aching and my heart was pounding in my chest. Take away the ball, the objective, and the team, and to me, running seemed boring, pointless and miserable.


Unfortunately, after eighth grade, my basketball and softball career ended and soccer went on a very long hiatus after my junior year of high school. I learned pretty quickly that post-puberty, running becomes a necessary evil if you still want to fit into designer jeans, but I was mainly a 2 to 5 mile gal.


A few things happened in my life during the past year. I watched my friend cross off a life goal on her list when she completed not one, but two full marathons. Thus, debunking my theory that the average woman was not capable of running a marathon with only a few months of training. At that point, I had finished several 5Ks, but that seemed like a cake walk in comparison to the challenge she had just tackled, so I pushed myself to try a 10K. Not only was I able to do it, but I was among the top finishers and that was with little preparation. So I signed up for a half marathon in the fall. (I must admit that the fact that it was called a Diva's Half Marathon and the runners would be given tiaras, boas and a blinged-out medal, persuaded me to sign up.) I decided that I needed some help to get ready to complete the 13.1-mile course without collapsing, so when a heard about Team in Training, a program that provides you with a running plan, coaches and a team to keep you motivated, while raising money for The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, I thought this would be the missing component I needed. I'd be running, but I'd have a team to keep me distracted from the pain my body would be feeling and a purpose, to help find a cure for blood cancers, to motivate me to lace up my sneakers everyday.


Well, I was so impressed by the group that I thought why not set the bar a little higher, maybe twice as high, and shoot for a full marathon. Wish me luck. Oh and if you'd like to donate toward my cause of completing this challenge and raising money for a great charity, please go here: http://pages.teamintraining.org/li/nikesf10/tconry


Maybe I should wear one of these shirts during my runs too to help me on the job hunt as well.

Have a story you would like to share about how you were able to tackle a difficult challenge? Contact me at FitChickChitChat@gmail.com or post your comments here!