Something said in this week’s James Clear email resonates with me.
“The loser has more in common with the winner than with the person sitting on the sidelines.  The winner and the loser each had the courage to try. Both risked embarrassment. Both were willing to face uncertainty. Both were stubborn enough to continue.  Success is endurance in disguise. It belongs to the person who can absorb the losses without absorbing the identity of "loser." It's the courage to start — and to stick with it — that is the real separator. Results tend to find the person who stays in the game.  The sidelines are safe, but sterile. Nothing grows there."
There are a number of things said there I like.  Like “The sidelines are safe, but sterile. Nothing grows there.”
I honestly feel that way about arm chair critics watching a football match or any sort of contest.  It is so easy to say what should have been done from the sidelines.  There is a good chance I am right.  I get to see some event from so many angles.  It can be “they only needed to do this or this and the result would have been different.”
Yet I am big on the difference between watching and participating.  To participate means so much dedication.  It means doing things repeatedly that no one sees.  The mum of one of our gold medallist’s in the Winter Olympics was thrilled that her daughter won but she said “the diet, oh the diet.”  To win had meant sacrifice and endurance.
An Australian was the punter on the winning team in the biggest match in American football.  He did not suddenly and for no reason get thrust into the limelight.  He literally did the hard yards.  His dedication and ability was noted.  There came a time when he shone but it was not by accident it was by participation, endurance.  Putting in the hours when the tv was not on him.
It worked out well.  For some hours of dedication have ended in tears as injury or failure to perform at the crucial time has cost.  Yet without fail I do not hear any winter Olympians speak of giving up.  Many say, “next time.”  They are not ready to inhabit the sidelines.  They learn and move on.  They aspire.
I am not an Olympian but I aspire.  I learn and move on.  I have success, I have failure but losing does not make me a loser.  Giving up does.  I may never be the best in the world, but I can be the best I can be.  That enough is enough to keep me busy.

Yesterday I decided not to post anything. There is one day per month I hold a breakfast here and need to be up and atom real early – not just as I normally am, but to prepare for a number of guys that come here for breakfast.
It is called Menzone – sort of a men’s shed thing.  There were 18 guys yesterday.  I really was not sure people would even be able to get here.  A lot of rain had been forecast.  As it turned out the Gold Coast got a drenching, but we missed most of it.  We did get about 25 ml but up to 100 and perhaps a lot more had been forecast.
It was actually a great time and we had about 6 that had never been before or had been once before.  What I really liked was how everyone was engaged in conversation.  I looked around the room (cause that is what I do) and saw there was not one person not talking with the one next to them.  Fair dinkum I love that.  A number had never met some but everyone is friendly enough and interested in others enough to engage in conversation.
As is our custom someone spoke.  It turns out this time the guy came all the way from the house.  It was me.  People were gracious and interested and I was told later the thing spoken about was relevant and impacting.
I was really glad about that as the topic was one that had impacted me big time in recent times.  It was all about purpose.  I proposed we can make it way more complicated than it is.
It had hit me around Christmas time and was our motivation for inviting whoever wanted to to spend Christmas lunch here.  I only recently found out where it was from, but it was the phrase “as much as you have done it to one of the least you are doing it to me.”
What we wanted was to make Christmas as special as we could no matter who turned up.  Turned out there were 7 of us.  I think my and everyone’s purpose is just to love God and others and to demonstrate that.
Anyway I talked briefly on that topic even though at the start I told them I would be brief but to take regular walks and to keep their fluids up.  I was joking and it was brief.
So that was the reason for no post yesterday. There is one today though!

Today is dictionary day and I found a word and it was a “say what” moment.  The word was so straightforward it took me by surprise.  It was “bend” as in curve.
My mind went immediately to a bend I loved when riding my motorcycle in Townsville.  It was a sweeping left-hand curve that lent itself to leaning into and opening the throttle.  The trouble is the police knew that.  But I did not know they knew that.
It was too my absolute surprise to have a policeman with a handheld radar step out from behind a palm tree and nab me.  Ok he was in the right and I was in the wrong but, but, but.  It was such a nice curve.  I wish it was like Merril jokes and the speed limit signs are suggestions only.
Anyway long sweeping curves and motor cycles seem made for each other.
But curves when building seem to be hard.  I notice nearly all buildings I enter are rectangular.  Building in straight lines is easier.  Curves cost more, take more time and are harder to do.  Often results look great but they are definitely on a different level.  The sails of the Sydney Opera House are a work of art, but the building is famous for a number of reasons not least of which are the sails.
The only time I curve stuff is with garden edging.  I really like the results but even most garden beds are in a rectangular shape.
Bend does not only relate to physical structures.  People sometimes “bend the rules.”  I do have a problem with that.  I have recently taken to saying, “just because it is legal does not make it right.”  I am thinking how some incredibly wealthy influential people find loop holes to exploit.  It becomes like “one rule for them and another for most.”  Legal but not right.
Anyway bend brought to mind a few things.  I still wish though that policeman behind the palm tree had found something else to do that day.