Inspiration at Walgreens :)

Hey everyone,
First things first....I did not write this. It's actually written by my old freshman college roommate who I have re-connected with on facebook. She's awesome and I would encourage you to read this with an open mind :) It's VERY inspiring....Kind of long...but seriously. Read it :)

I stood in line at Walgreen's on Saturday after paying for my things with a check. The cashier hit some keys on her till, fed the check through her machine, and nothing happened. I didn’t notice it the first time or even the next two times. By the fourth time, I was paying attention. The cashier would take the check and again feed it through the check reading machine. She did the same thing four more times, looking at me and smiling nervously. Another cashier noticed her troubles and finally came to assist her after she had tried another two times. Yes, ten times through the machine and it never read my check. This has a happy ending. The second cashier showed my cashier how to do it correctly and the sale was completed in less than fifteen seconds. But those five minutes at the payment counter stirred something in me. I was struck by the actions of my cashier, and I began to analyze it. She had a goal. The goal was to complete the sale and give me my receipt so I could be on my way. But something was getting in the way. The machine wasn’t working the way she wanted it to. It wasn’t registering the check. My cashier wanted to reach the goal but wasn’t sure what to do about it. So she continued to feed the check into the machine, hoping that this time, it would read the check. THIS TIME, it would register and print a receipt. THIS TIME, she could reach her goal. But it didn’t work out that way. Eventually someone needed to step in and show her what to do. She couldn’t achieve her goal by repeating the same actions.And that leads me to the “insanity" of it. In college, I had a psychology professor who defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” I filed that in my brain as something I could learn from. And lately, I’ve been pulling that definition out more and more. We all experience our levels of insanity. In relationships. Friendships. Preparing for a test. Trying to lose weight. Making small choices or big decisions. We repeat things we’ve tried before, thinking this time it will work. THIS TIME I will succeed. And then we’re surprised when it doesn’t. Or are we? Because sometimes we repeat those failures because it’s what we know. It’s familiar. It’s safe. Even if we know it will fail. Funny, isn’t it? Those things won’t lead us to our goal (sometimes we’re very aware of this), but we do them, anyway. We fear change. We know that we have to try something else, but we’re afraid to do that. We don’t have the confidence in our ability to change. We don’t have the energy or motivation to do something different. So we don’t. Until that moment when we realize our own insanity. Until we decide that we want the goal bad enough. Until we see our need to change. We make a plan and take that first step. Then the second step. We commit ourselves to reaching the goal and before we know it, a change is taking place.I came face to face with insanity at Walgreen's. I am thankful for that cashier who was unaware of the significance of that moment. She demonstrated for me that I needed to do something different. For the past several months, I’ve been in a funk. It’s a bit hard to describe. I’ve been achieving many things, spending time with family and friends, and overall, I can say that I am honestly very happy. But I have felt so sluggish, so tired, so dull. My health is important to me, and each spring I spend time working out, doing Tae Bo, walking, and training for 5K runs. I join Weight Watchers and become mindful of my eating habits. Not this spring. I haven’t done any of that. I followed Weight Watchers so sporadically that it didn’t benefit me. Because I would see that doughnut on the team table and those cookies at guard rehearsal and the chocolate on sale at Meijer… and all mindfulness was tossed out the window. The treadmill is still folded up where it’s been all winter. I never even bothered to look for my Tae Bo DVD. And here’s where it all becomes insane: I KNOW that if I become mindful of what I eat and begin exercising again, I WILL FEEL BETTER. I could pull myself out of this funk. It would take ME doing something DIFFERENT, but I know I could achieve that goal. Saturday night I formulated a plan to begin my first step—I would run on Sunday. Two miles. I kept it on the forefront of my mind all day on Sunday. As I put away Abbie’s birthday presents. As I planned out my week. As I played with the girls. As I made dinner. I thought about it and held myself to my plan. At 7:00, I set everything aside and went on my run. I can’t say that I didn’t stop to catch my breath along the way. And I can’t say that it was easy once I set out to keep my commitment. As I ran, I thought of changing my course to one mile. Once I stopped to catch my breath, I thought of walking the rest of the way. But I pressed on. Coming up Ridgebluff at the end of the course is the toughest. It’s uphill and I thought I might give up. I felt like throwing up. So I looked up to the street lights next to the sidewalk and imagined myself drawing the energy from those lights. I breathed in strength and exhaled weakness. And I prayed. Before I knew it, I was up the hill and rounding the corner onto 87th Street. Ahead of me, I saw Katie and Abbie running toward me, yelling “Mommy! Mommy!” I saw Marc in the front yard smiling. Tremendous joy flowed through me and that feeling was incredibly powerful. I did it. Step one has been achieved. I am one step closer to breaking this pattern of insanity. Every moment of our lives can hold amazing power. We can change. We can grow. We can listen and learn. Because sometimes all it takes is a five minute wait in Walgreen's to open our eyes.