A Time To Play That Shot and A Time to Leave It In The Bag

In between naps yesterday I was watching a movie on the Golf Channel.  The Legend of Bagger Vance starring Will Smith and Matt Damon.  Although many would consider this a movie about golf, it is much deeper than that.  Bagger Vance is a movie about God and a man's relationship to him.

For those who haven't seen the movie, I'll try to sum up the basic premise.  Rannulph Junuh is a promising young golfer, poised to become one of the best to play the game.  When WWI starts, Junuh enlists and, while at war, sees the horrific things that soldiers see in war.  He comes back a broken man.  As the Great Depression sweeps the country Junuh is put in a position to play in a golf tournament with two other great golfers in an effort to save the country club left to his former fiancee when her father succumbs to the effects of the depression and takes his own life.

Junuh hasn't picked up a club in years, but while practicing his drives one night, out of the darkness emerges a caddy, Bagger Vance.  Junuh is reluctant to accept the help from Bagger, but slowly starts to see the advantage of following the caddy's advice.  As the movie goes on, Junuh becomes more and more confident in his abilities, but in doing so feels less and less reliant on Bagger Vance.  Then, instead of laying up on a hole, decides he's going to "go for the win".  Bagger tries to tell Junuh that, "There's a time to play that shot, and a time to leave it in the bag."

I know I've been guilty of that myself, probably more often than I care to admit.  When I should be "leaving it in the bag" and trusting in God to show me the right direction, I "play the shot".  I don't mean to say that I take unnecessary risks, as most who know me would probably not think of me as one who takes too many risks.  What I mean though is that I don't do what is right for me or best for me at that moment in my life.  I want what I want and when I want it.  I get impatient so, instead of laying up on the shot, I end up hitting the shot in to the bunker.

I guess the hard part for me is knowing when it's time to play the shot, and when it's time to leave it in the bag.  When do we take our stance and just knock the living crap out of the ball and when do we lay up?  We've got to trust God to let us know when what we want may not be what is best for us.  We've got to be ok with the answer we get to be "no".

I'll keep striving to achieve that balance.  I'll keep listening for God to let me know when it's time to hit the shot, and when it's time to leave it in the bag.

It's Routine

I haven't been quite as good about keeping up with my blog as I used to be.  Or maybe I "keep up" just fine, there's just not a lot I have to say.

On the running front, I'm preparing for two back-to-back half marathons.  This will be the first time I've attempted to run half marathons on consecutive weekends.  It seems that my running workouts have gotten to be little more difficult.  But after looking back at my running logs, they seem to be right on track with where they've been in the past, so maybe it's just all in my head.  I can definitely say that I haven't really improved any.  I knew that I would hit that point eventually where I would plateau.  I am hoping that I will get better as the year goes on, but if this is where I'm meant to be, then that's ok too.

Working third shift has been a little bit of an adjustment.  I've adjusted fairly well to the hours, and have yet to find myself struggling to stay awake during the shift.  But this is where I struggle a little with running.  I have, on a couple of occasions, considered going out for a run after getting off work in the morning, but have been a little tired and decided to wait until the evening.  The difficult part there is that, even though I get plenty of sleep during the day, it is normally sporadic.  I'll sleep a few hours when I get home, then be up for an hour or two, then sleep a few more hours.  Because of that, it makes it a little more difficult for me to motivate myself to get out of bed a couple of hours early to go run before work, when normally I'd be settling in for that last little bit of sleep.

Or maybe all of that is just an excuse.  On day shift I developed a routine.  My sleep wasn't so broken though, so I could just go to bed a little early, wake up a little early and I was fine.  I've only got a couple of weeks before I run the Country Music Half Marathon and the Cap City Half Marathon.  After that I've got my summer training session, and if I haven't developed my routine before then, I should be able to get in the swing of things over the summer.  This will hopefully make it so that my training is more efficient, and I start to see some improvements again in my running.

Things at the Northwest Regional Emergency Communications Center are going well.  We're still short staffed, and I imagine it will be that way for a little while longer.  We did just bring two new dispatchers on board, but they will be in training for at least 5-6 months before they are able to contribute to staffing.  It's still not what I would consider to be a "critical" staffing shortage.  There is a lot of overtime being posted, but overall I'm still going to maintain my opinion that it has been worse than it is right now.  I still haven't worked an 80 hour week and everyone still has their sanity (well, as much as they had before we started this venture anyway).

Which brings me to my April Fool's joke.  On April 1 I posted my status on Facebook saying "Things are moving ALOT faster than expected. Don't want to make things more difficult on anyone than they already are, but got to do what's best for me."  Now to be honest, I expected that I might draw in one of the Communications Supervisors, and I did.  However, there were a couple of bonuses in my little joke.  See, when the center is short staffed and one infers from a Facebook posting of a current employee at that center that said Facebook posting means he has found another job and may be causing even more of a staffing issue...well...that's when the fun begins.  Honestly, it didn't last very long, but long enough.  The best part, for me anyway, was that I didn't have to lie or make up a story.  I just had to throw out a few general comments and let people's imaginations take it from there.  So, to those who were taken in... "April Fools" :-)

That is something that, in the past, has been a source of irritation for me though.  I have said something, or blogged something, and someone or some, have read in to what said.  That was a big reason why I left Facebook a few years back, and even when I told people exactly why I had left Facebook, there were those who speculated as to the "real reasons" or the "real meaning".  So I will take this opportunity to say again, what I have said before.  Don't try to read my mind, you're not very good at it.
I was saddened to hear of the death of comedian John Pinette, as well as actor Mickey Rooney.  Mickey Rooney is someone I'll remember most as the voice of Santa Claus in those Rankin & Bass Christmas specials.  John Pinette was the funniest comedian I had ever seen or listened too. It's sad to see anyone pass who can bring so much joy and laughter to so many people.