A few days ago one of the guys at CFES revealed he has some severe health problems: Celiac Disease, Hashimoto’s and Auto Immune Hepatitis. Celiac is an allergy to wheat gluten. Hashimoto’s is a thyroid condition and Auto Immune Hepatitis is a liver condition. I had to look online to find this out, because I was not familiar with any of those diseases. He’s lived with these problems for almost 20 years.
He manages to control the symptoms by adhering to a strict diet, and Crossfit. My own experiences with controlling diet lead me to believe it’s a difficult thing to do. Not to mention crossfit, which has it’s own requirements for discipline. He described the situation on the CFES blog, and I noticed a lot of people (myself included) used the word “inspiring” to describe his story.
It occurred to me afterwards that I did not recall ever actually being inspired by anybody. Now that’s a very surprising thing to discover. I recall being envious, or ambitious enough to want success, or curious about how other people got on, but never inspired. At least not as an adult. As a child I remember thinking various famous people were really interesting and had marvelous adventures. I remember wanting to be an astronaut. I had some notion that it was heroic. I’m certain that I had no idea at that time what a hero was. These days I think a hero is somehow who meets life’s challenges without rancor or bitterness.
I once attended a seminar called “Dynamic Leadership” run by two incredibly strong and compassionate men. Among other things they had been hostage negotiators, and law enforcement professionals. At one point one of them told a story that really impressed me, the lesson of which was “just say thanks.” That is perhaps among the best pieces of advice I ever got.
I suppose I am inspired to take better care of myself, and be respectful of people, when I see how hard other people work at living. As I’ve gotten past my first 1/2 century of life, I do notice the desire to invest a bit more of myself in my own life. Perhaps one day I will find myself interesting!
Today is Sunday. I did Helen (400m run, 21 35# kettlebells swings, 12 pullups, 3 rounds.) My total time was 13:25. It is an improvement of 23 seconds since the last time.
Cheers.
