The Wild Dog Blog

Tag: writing

  • The Morning Ritual

    How joyful is it to sit outside at sunrise and listen to the birds starting their day? Their energy rises with the sun – at first their calls are soft and sleepy, but as the sun rises they crescendo into a brilliant chorus. If I counted each unique call, how many would there be? I hear calls from the woodpecker, the owl, the blue jay, and the little brown bird with the yellow on its chest. I’m reminded that this is their home too. 

    As the sun gets higher, the birds get quieter. Their morning ritual is coming to an end. They’ve greeted the day, rejoiced, and now it’s time to move on to the day’s work. It’s time for me to move on too. I’m tempted to stay a little longer in the ease of the morning, but I can’t delay when there’s a day waiting to be lived.

  • The Gift of Waking – Malibu, California

    California inspires the observer with all of its character, color, and texture. From the houses, to the terrain, to the ocean – everything has an exuberance that draws the eye. I imagine it’s a paradise for the artist, photographer, and writer. 

    The coast in particular boasts a glorious pre-dawn vibrance. There’s a distinct richness of color that’s offered by the sun as it rises over the Pacific Ocean to give the gift of another day.

    Isn’t it astonishing that the earth rewards us so generously just for waking?

  • Become a Gardener

    When we’re creating something, there’s so much out of our control. We can really only control what we choose to create and how we choose to create it – we can’t control whether or not it becomes something that’s meaningful to others or makes an impact.

    I think of creating as planting a seed in the ground. I picture myself cradling the seed in my hands before parting the cool, damp dirt aside to bury it in the soil. After I cover it up and pat the dirt down on top, all I can do is come back to the same spot each day to water and keep the weeds away. All I can do is use the tools that I have to cultivate what I’ve planted. When it starts to grow and at what rate it grows isn’t up to me. 

    To create is to accept and find freedom in becoming the gardener of your ideas.

  • Begin Again

    How many times do we begin again in this life? Probably more than we realize. I think it’s possible that we all make small choices everyday that allow for renewal, without even noticing. 

    Making an effort to be kind to someone you’ve been dismissive of, engaging with a stranger when you normally would avoid conversation, picking up a book instead of your phone, starting a new journal – are all split second decisions made in fleeting moments. But that doesn’t make them trivial. 

    Beginning again doesn’t always have to happen in the form of a life altering decision or big leap of faith. It can happen in the barely noticeable changes in how we show up and the choices we make and the “hops” of faith that take us farther than we ever could have predicted.

  • Renewal

    Over a decade ago in Bastrop, Texas, high winds, downed power lines, and drought conditions caused the most destructive fire in state history. It burned 34,000 acres of land in 55 days. The pine forests in and around Bastrop State Park are still recovering. 

    This past January, I ran my first 100K ultramarathon in Bastrop State Park and got to see first hand the charred landscape that was reminiscent of the elephant graveyard in “The Lion King.” But I also got to see the start of new growth – young pine trees scattered throughout the park, their evergreen pine needles standing out in sharp contrast to blackened stumps and the golden brown trail. It was a beautiful and inspiring place to explore for 62 miles.

    Forest or human, nothing and no one is immune to the cycle of degeneration and regeneration. I’m thankful to the forests that show us how it’s done and remind us of our own capacity for renewal.

  • Steady Like a Boat

    Be steady like a boat. Even though it doesn’t know its destination or how long it will have to endure each passing storm – it doesn’t waver. For the boat, the only choice is onward – with faith in the horizon that awaits.

  • The Centipede

    I watched a centipede make its way along the bannister at the end of the boardwalk. It would inch along for a few seconds, stick its head up to look around, and then continue on. It almost seemed as if it were looking for something, but for what I wasn’t sure. 

    Are we any different from that centipede? Try as we might, we’re unable to see what’s ahead of us or maybe not even sure what we’re looking for. We can only move forward in faith that our path will continue to unfold. 

    I watched the centipede fall from the banister and thought about picking it up to return it to its place, but I stopped myself. Isn’t that how we all get to where we need to be? By pursuing a path, getting redirected by failure or the unexpected, and discovering a new and often better path as a result. 

    I sat there, staring at the centipede curled up on the ground, wondering if it could have died from its fall. A few seconds later, it uncurled, stretched its head up to look around, and dutifully continued on its way. It was a humbling reminder of what’s available to all of us – the choice to keep inching along undeterred, no matter how many times the path changes up ahead.

  • Writing as a Teacher

    Writing has taught me to just start and figure out the rest later. It’s taught me to act without a plan and without knowing if what I’m doing will ever mean anything to anyone but me.

    It’s taught me to explore for the sake of exploring and with no outcome in mind. 

    A decade of putting words onto paper privately and I’m just now venturing into what it looks like to share some of those words publicly. I couldn’t have known how rewarding it would be to do so when I bought my first journal 10 years ago.

     It’s a testimony to acting without knowing. What interests or curiosities are you not acting on because you can’t perceive a clear goal or outcome? Act first and let the purpose reveal itself over time.

  • Honor Your Curiosities

    It’s 2023 and I’m on the edge of my couch, with my face in my hands, watching my alma mater Florida Atlantic University lose and get knocked out of the championship in their first ever trip to the Final Four. I’ve never been a basketball fan. But the hype of watching FAU beat the odds all season long got me hooked. The let-down of their loss starts to sink in as I spoon the last of a pint of ice cream into my mouth and watch the camera pan across the players’ faces of despair and disbelief. I’m depressed – but at the same time – another familiar feeling starts to rise to the surface.

    That night, I type into Google “basketball coaches near me.” I’m 27 years old and I’ve decided I’m going to take a basketball lesson. When I tell my friends and family, they laugh and ask me “why?” The best reason I can come up with is because I watched March Madness, which doesn’t make it any more logical, and probably makes it less logical. But the truth is, I can’t tell them why because there is no reason why. It’s not logical. It’s curiosity.

    While the basketball lesson did not, shockingly, lead to a WNBA career – it did lead me to think about how often my actions are driven by curiosity without reason, without needing to know where something will lead or why I’m doing it, and how my life has unfolded with possibility in ways I never could have predicted as a result.

    In 2018, I ran a 7 mile trail race and saw other runners at the same race completing 50 miles and 100 miles. I thought that looked like a pretty cool accomplishment and adventure – so despite 13 miles being the longest I had ever run at that time, I came back and ran the 50 mile distance the next year. I’ve been traveling the country running ultramarathons ever since.

    In 2021, I was watching Katie Ledecky dominate swimming at the Tokyo Olympics. I thought the swimmers looked so beautiful and free in the water, and suddenly felt drawn to being in the water myself. I had no swimming experience and had felt no interest in swimming up until that exact moment. I signed up for a local masters swim team that week to learn, and have been swimming ever since – competing at Masters Nationals, in local triathlons, and in long distance open water swims.

    When I made the decision to try both ultrarunning and swimming on somewhat of a whim, I was predictably asked “why?” by my friends and family. And early on, I didn’t have an answer for them or even for myself. All I had was that little spark of curiosity and interest, and an unrestrained instinct to act on that spark – no matter how seemingly small or illogical. In fact, if I look back on my life, the most meaningful and transformative pursuits started without a clear “why.” The why was something I slowly pieced together over time once I was actually out there doing the thing. In a culture that constantly preaches the importance of “knowing your why,” it turns out knowing your why, at least initially, is not all that important and life changing.

    What’s important and life changing is honoring your curiosities and interests by taking action. Giving yourself permission to not know why in order to try, to not need to make your actions logical to other people or even to yourself. If you wait for an obvious and logical reason to act, I think you’ll be waiting your whole life. Some people do wait their whole lives and will always wonder what could have been. Some people wait until their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and wish they would have started sooner. As a strength and endurance coach, I hear that story all the time.

    Take the basketball lesson. Tune in and act on that spark of curiosity you’ve been dismissing just because you can’t come up with a clear why. It might lead to very little, like my basketball lesson did, and that’s okay. But it also might lead to adding surprising new chapters to your story that you never could have written while sitting on your couch waiting and wondering. In my experience, you’ll find that when you act, the why you’ve been waiting for has actually been waiting for you.

    Ready to act on your curiosities? Wild Dog Athletics provides online coaching and programming to help you reach your goals and embark on new adventures. Go to: https://www.wilddogathletics.com/ to learn more.

  • Creativity is Something We Receive

    Instead of: “What am I going to create?”

    Try: “What is asking to be created?”

    Like dreams, creativity is not fully on our terms. We can’t control the dreams we have at night, and we can’t control when and how inspiration will strike. 

    What we can control is how closely we’re paying attention. When we’re listening and looking for opportunities to be creative, we’re priming ourselves to be open and receptive when unexpected inspiration presents itself. 

    In a creative block, simply living and paying attention can be the most powerful tools at our disposal.