Something I can't explain...

...is the only way to explain my having gotten up in time to get to work. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Eugene M. was assigned to interpret at yesterday's MMT, a weekly telecon of the Mission Management Team involving high-level managers from both U.S. and Russian sides. The telecon finally let out around 9:20 am, and by the time I'd "handed over" my shift (i.e., told him about what had happened during my shift), it was 9:30.

At that moment, another interpreter, Olga D., came by and the three of us spent a few minutes gossiping, which was ironic, seeing as I had spent the last hour or so of the shift reading don Miguel Ruiz' The Four Agreements, which hasn't much good to say about the practice.

By the time I'd gone to the bank and gone home, it was 11 am or so and I went directly to bed and slept reasonably well until 4 pm. When I got up, it was clear I am still not a well puppy.

Although my throat doesn't feel sore any more, there are still moments I can feel it is raw, due to the coughing and hacking. Whatever I have seems to have settled into my chest. My energy level is low.

In any event, I cooked something to eat and then lay in bed reading The Angry Hills, by Leon Uris. Upon finishing the book at around 8 pm, I turned over and went to sleep, secure in the knowledge that my alarm was set for 10:30 pm.

I awoke at 11:25, which is two minutes before I have to be out the door of the Pearland house in order to make it to JSC and my work place by midnight. (I was out the door at 11:32. In the end, I still beat the Russians in to work.)

Coffee. The cells in my body seem to be crying out in unison: "Coffee!... coffee!" It is a cry that must be heeded.

Cheers...

Self-limiting beliefs

I picked up a copy of don Miguel Ruiz' The Four Agreements on the basis of having had several copies pass through my hands briefly during the Christmas season. Specifically, I served three customers who came into the store to pack and send the book off to someone.

The volume has to do with self-limiting beliefs and how to remove the influence of such beliefs from one's life. Despite the tone of the author - who speaks ostensibly as a Toltec naugal, or master - what the book has to say isn't something that hasn't been noted by other motivational writers and speakers over the years.

It is the first time, though, that I've seen such a concentrated attack on self-limiting beliefs. Ruiz wields his words like sledgehammers, exhorting readers to adopt a code of conduct that he says will transform their lives. I think he has a point.

* * *How we approach life's challenges is tempered by our previous experiences in similar situations. Solutions that worked last time are the ones we are most likely to try first, without even thinking about it.

Interestingly, solutions that didn't work last time are also the ones we are likely to try first, also without thinking about it and with little heed for the consequences of the solution not working. The reasons for this vary, but I think it has to do with our view of the world and of ourselves.

Take my chess-playing experience. After that first humiliation, I could have, simply, gone about my business and ignored chess for the rest of my life. Why did I pursue it?

To this day, I don't really know, but if I had to provide an answer, I'd say it was because I felt I could do better. Why did I feel that? Because I was good at mental games and puzzles.

Let me say that again: Because I was good at mental games and puzzles.

Which is a statement of belief about myself. I derived that belief from my experience "helping" my stepdad with things such as crosswords and acrostics in the Sunday paper.

If I had established a history of failure with various games and puzzles, things may have turned out differently, chess-wise.

As it was, winning the camp tournament in the following summer reinforced the idea that if I applied myself, no mental task was impossible.

As a counterexample, I can point to my lackluster career as a member of my high school track team, or even earlier, as a kid on the streets of Queens, New York playing in any of a number of pick-up games of softball.

You see, somewhere, I got the idea that I couldn't field the ball, which is why I was a permanent right-fielder. Whenever a ball was hit in my direction, I panicked. "Oh, God!," I'd think to myself, "I'm going to drop it. I just know I'm going to drop it."

And I would, more often than not.

So how, might you ask, did I manage to get selected to play at all?

Well, I also believed I was the greatest hitter in the world since Babe Ruth, and my "unofficial" batting average of something above .900, with a disproportionate number of home runs hit over the right-field fence supported that belief.

When my folks moved out to the Island in my junior year of high school, it was too late in the season to try out for the football team. I knew I was a lousy basketball player, but tried out for the team, anyway, and got cut early. Surprising, eh?

In the spring, I went out for track, believing myself to be a sprinter. In this case, belief came up against hard reality. I was fast, but not fast enough to be a 100-yard sprinter. I ended up assigned to the 220-yard dash, the 440-yard dash, and the broad jump.

My performance, over two years, was mediocre, although I did place a couple of times in county-wide competitions. My problem seemed to be an unwillingness to push myself physically. I could not see (i.e., did not believe there was) a connection between, say, running the cross-country course to improve my endurance and my performance in the 220, so I just went through the motions.

My track coach didn't help, either. It always seemed to me that he looked at me rather disdainfully, and I remember him telling me once, "You're a lousy athlete." His words are still seared in my mind.

In any event, I believed him, apparently.

A fundamental sea change in my belief system occurred during Marine boot camp, in an episode I alluded to in my post of last March 10th, On fear....

A fundamental part of boot training is, as you would expect, physical conditioning, and the Marines put a lot of stock in the ability to run. Someone, somewhere picked the magic number "3" and it has become the standard distance, in miles, that one runs.

Early in boot training, I found it difficult to run. Specifically, at some point, I decided I couldn't take it any more, and dropped out of formation during a run (applying the "solution" that I'd used in my track days when I got tired running the cross-country course). The small group of us that did so were mercilessly berated by our drill instructors afterward, and we were punished with additional "physical training," or PT to encourage us not to drop out again.

But I did drop out again. And again, and again. I could face the ensuing abuse and PT a lot easier than I could the running. I hated running. And I knew I couldn't run three miles.

Finally, on Thursday of the first week of the rifle range phase of training, the drill instructor called all of us "non-hackers" into his office one at a time and told us the news: The Lieutenant had decreed that anyone who dropped out of the following Monday's run would be "recycled," or sent back to repeat three weeks of training. After dropping that bombshell and immediately before dismissing me, he gave me a hard look and growled: "Your problem's not in your legs, private. Your problem's between your ears."

The prospect of spending another three weeks on Parris Island appalled me. I think I would rather have sold my mother into slavery than have to repeat that training cycle. What to do?

I decided to brainwash myself.

For the next three days, I kept up a continuous stream of self-talk that amounted to variations on the theme of: "You can do it!" I spent the moments standing in formation outside the mess hall after chow scribbling variations of "You can do it!" in my little red notebook.

You can do it!

You can run three miles!

It's only three miles.

Everyone can do it, so can you!

You're going to run, run, run!

You can do it!

On Sunday, the Lieutenant made the announcement official: anyone who dropped out of the following day's run would be recycled. On Monday morning, all of us "non-hackers" were afforded a place of honor for the morning run, in a little formation right behind the Lieutenant. I ran next to a pudgy black kid from Alabama - I forget his name - with whom I'd spent lots of time doing punishment PT. (He ended up dropping out of the run, by the way, and he and his seabag were gone from the squadbay by the time we got back from the run.)

Me, I finished the run. I didn't feel particularly tired, physically, but I was elated, emotionally. No, "elated" is too mild a word. I was jazzed, exuberant, victorious. For a few moments, I felt the pure thought that there was nothing I couldn't do, no obstacle I couldn't overcome, no enemy I couldn't beat. My D.I. even managed to break into a crooked smile when he looked directly at me after noon chow that day; I think he was proud of me.

Of course, belief will not, in itself, turn a sow's ear into a silk purse, but it remains a powerful force that largely rules our lives.

Cheers...