Josh Cox: Carpe Diem
(Elite Athlete Blog - Entry #2)
Posted February 6th, 2008 at 3:15 PM by Josh Cox
Section: News & Results, Marathons, Motivation, Olympics, Elite Athlete Blogs, Josh Cox
Check back every other Wednesday for his latest entry and for more information about Cox, also please visit: www.joshcox.com
In ‘97 Cox ran and won a 50-mile ultra, in ’99 he ran his first marathon making him the youngest Trials qualifier. The following year he clocked 2:13, which opened the door for him to train with the world’s best in Kenya. Cox has tried his hand at Reality TV, been all over magazine covers and is a fixture in the sport.
CARPE DIEM
“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven played music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Baptist minister and civil rights leader“It is a sad fate for a man to die too well known to everybody else, and still unknown to himself.”
- Francis Bacon, English philosopher and statesman“Never, never, never quit.”
- Winston Churchill, Author, soldier and Prime Minister
October 1980, Paul David Hewson and his band - formally known as “Feedback” and “The Hype” - had just released their first full-length album, Boy. Their single “I Will Follow” climbed the UK charts and their star was born. Around that time, the band joined a religious group in Dublin, the Shalom Fellowship. Time passed and some of Shalom’s leaders began criticizing the bands “involvement in the world.” The leaders told the band that in order to please God they would have to give up rock ‘n’ roll.
February 1785, 25 year-old Parliament member William Wilberforce was touring Europe and had a conversion to the faith. Wilberforce struggled with a dilemma not unlike the band’s: ’serve God or pursue his political passions’. What would they do? What was their heart saying? What were their gifts and design, their passions and desires? What made them come alive?
Fortunately, Wilberforce had better council than the band. Future UK Prime Minister William Pitt encouraged his friend to stay with politics, as did infamous former slave trader and famous “Amazing Grace” songwriter, John Newton. Wilberforce went on to lead the parliamentary campaign to abolish slavery and was a celebrated British politician and philanthropist. In 1833 he was laid to rest in Westminster Abbey.
Pitt and Newton were right - the Shalom leadership could not have been more wrong. They may as well have told the eagle not to fly and Shakespeare not to rhyme. We please God and shine brightest when we use the gifts He entrusted. Should we narrow our interests? Yes, but it’s never an either/or – how we meld our talents and passions is what makes us unique. It’s how we offer something new to the world.
Hewson (aka Bono) and his band, rather than deciding between their love for song and their love for God, chose to synthesize faith and music. And nearly three decades and 15 albums later, U2 is the toughest ticket in show business.
Never bury something you love, no matter what people may say. If you have, start excavating.
My original plan for this blog entry was to talk about Africa – the runners, the people, and my time spent there but after reading the comments and questions sent in here and over at the MySpace blog I felt the Temet Nosce dialog from my first entry should continue. After all, this blog is for you, the reader, not me, the blogger.
In the comments, Tom wrote:
“I like the idea about writing goals/desires/etc down, but what worries me is that I don’t know what to write. I fear that there’s nothing that really excites me anymore, if I take out the ego.”
My brother used to love baseball, he played on area code teams - a big deal, set county records, was a talented hitter, could throw over 90 mph but a college coach, through a long series of events, turned his love and passion into monotonous work. Subsequently, he lost his love for the game.
The same can happen for runners, writers, teachers, ministers, and businessmen. When people lose touch with the thing that once made their heart come alive their life becomes humdrum, mundane, boring, and monotonous.
How many adults really love what they do?
How many people live out their passions and dreams?
In Joe Versus the Volcano, a movie with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, Meg’s character said:
“My father says that almost the whole world is asleep. Everybody you know. Everybody you see. Everybody you talk to. He says that only a few people are awake and they live in a state of constant total amazement.”
“A state of constant total amazement.” It’s like what the author of Way of the Peaceful Warrior, Dan Millman, said, “There are no ordinary moments.”
The people who love their life and love their jobs are those who followed their hearts. Those people, whether they know it or not, ‘examined, knew, cultivated, and immersed’. They did what they loved and consequently they love what they do.
I think one of the reasons I love being around other full time athletes is that they follow their hearts; they are alive. No one has turned; no one has wavered. If your heart isn’t in it you won’t make it through the 140-mile weeks.
Like Tom said, we have to dump the ego – which can be tough, particularly for me – and really examine our heart. You said, “I don’t know what to write.”
There is something that you love. We all have something that still moves us, something that makes us feel alive.
Today I was running along the coast; at one point the road has a gradual drop, a grade so slight you hardly notice but just enough to shift gears. I was flying. The iPod was doing it’s thing, I was doing mine, and it was one of those “motion without effort” moments - the runners know what I’m talking about - and I was thinking: I really, really, love this. I feel alive out here.
It’s easy to get caught up in what the world offers but you have to strip it away. The paychecks, accolades, magazine covers, awards, and validation from people and peers. Those things fuel the ego. Strip them away and get back to what you love – and Tom, it’s never too late to follow your heart. Ronald Reagan, after an acting career, didn’t throw his hat into the political arena until age 55.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying a paycheck doesn’t matter, it does. I’m not saying quit your job tomorrow, go buy some paints, canvas, brushes, and have at it; that would be foolish. I am saying that if you do what you love then you never go to work. Too often the paycheck is the driving and determining factor in our vocational choices.
It’s never too late to follow your heart and chase down a dream or two.
Back in ’98 I had a choice, get a real job, continue my education, or run. My heart told me to run but since living in Southern California isn’t free, running would also entail working. So I prayed, knew running was the path to pursue and off I went. Run in the morning, bike to and from work, and run in the evening. Second verse, same as the first. Day in and day out the candle burned.
I ran, acquired a few sponsors but the running biz is just like any other business, starting out they’re going to pay you as little as possible. So I had plenty of gear and food but not a lot of money. All that to say this - My fellow college grads were making good money but I followed my heart, chose to run and was broke as a joke. Not ‘poor’ - I better budget my money, but ‘Poor’ - I didn’t have any money to budget. I lived on Smart Start cereal, PowerBars and Bisquik (for real!).
The other day I found a picture, circa ’99, that my brother took of me holding my beloved Smart Start box, I was grinning and had my thumb hoisted high in the air. My wife, Carrie, saw the picture and gave me the, ‘why are you posing with a cereal box’ look. She has come to expect stupid, idiotic things like this from me so it really wasn’t a big shock.
I explained to her that my brother DC made me pose for the picture because he swore that’s all I ever ate. I like that picture, it represents a great deal. I should frame it and put it on the wall … No, no … I shouldn’t. Carrie would just make me take it down.
Anyway … The Time of Testing. We all have it, where the rubber meets the road, where our life has to back up our rhetoric.
Going to dinner after Tuesday night workouts and being so poor you order a biscuit, water and some Sweet’N Low because it kind of makes the water taste like tea doesn’t impress the ‘hoity-toity’ here in San Diego but it was part of the deal. Sacrifice. If this running thing were easy everyone would do it.
Acclaimed Harry Potter author, J.K. Rowling, was unemployed and living on state benefits when she completed her manuscript for the first book in the series - only to have it rejected by the first 12 publishers.
When J.R.R. Tolkien let his friend Rayner Unwin read book one of The Lord of the Rings Rayner went back to his friend and responded, “Quite honestly, I don’t know who is expected to read it.”
A steady dose of shut doors marked Abe Lincoln’s early political pursuits.
When I was on The Bachelorette one of the guys said, “Man, you’re real lucky. You get to do what you love.” I nodded, offered a half grin, and told him, “thanks,” but it wasn’t luck, it was a choice.
Fortunately, I qualified for the Trials in ‘99; and in 2000 I underwent physiological testing and was invited to a training camp. I no longer had to burn the candle at both ends; I could train.
Thankfully, J.K. Rowling wasn’t deterred from following her dream and a year later she found a suitor for her first book.
Fortunately for Tolkien, after 14 years of writing, a critic’s comment wouldn’t sway, a single pundit’s voice wouldn’t deter.
The country, and the five-dollar bill, will be forever grateful to our 16th President, Honest Abe, for being the poster child for “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”
Let me close by composing the crux of my first two entries. This is what I’ve been getting at. This is what I’ve been trying to pull from the mire. This is what I’ve been trying to say through sentences, stories, and songs. I pray it doesn’t fall on deaf ears:
Can a blog by a runner on a running site change things? I think so. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have signed on.
I want to wake people up. When you watch cancer make your dad fade away, when you listen to a successful businessman, a man who was president and CEO of companies, a man who made millions and had everything the world could offer, tell you, days from death, that from where he laid on that hospice bed only two things mattered: His relationship with God and his relationships with man, it changes you.
He told me to be faithful with the gifts, relationships, time, and talents entrusted. I hung on his every word. I think, for the first time, I wasn’t just waiting for my turn to speak. There in that hospice room, I really, really learned how to listen.
A few days later I was holding his hand and he took his last breath. I can’t tell you what that was like; I reevaluated everything: Running, goals, dreams, pursuits, relationships … Everything.
My dad had some dreams he never acted on. He thought he had tomorrow, but tomorrow was a lie. His words held me captive; then those words set me free.
What I’m saying to you is this: YOU ARE GREAT! Somewhere inside, rests the ability to be absolutely marvelous, splendid, magnificent, and spectacular. Not some of us, but ALL of us … every last one.
Some us find it, some of us don’t. It’s our job to find it and dedicate our lives to achieving that greatness. Not so we can become famous, not so we can become rich, not so we can gain and take and be on TV and drive fast cars – but rather so we can offer that greatness to the world and make this planet a better place.
So go. Quit reading already. Find your something. Believe in your dreams.
Claw, scrape, sweat, and bleed to make it happen. Find the door to your dreams and knock, knock, and knock until your knuckles bleed and your bones hurt. Knock until you wake everyone in the house. When they tell you to leave, keep knocking. If you knock long enough and hard enough, eventually someone will open the door just to shut you up.
Never give up and never give in. When you find something worth dying for then you have found something worth living for … You can do it. Believe. Temet Nosce. Carpe Diem.
“I’m wide awake, I’m wide awake, wide awake, I’m not sleeping.” - “Bad” by U2
Written while listening to: U2’s Boy, Unforgettable Fire, and Joshua Tree, Radiohead’s In Rainbows, Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde, and Johnny Cash’s final testament: American V: A Hundred Highways.
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The Final Sprint
[…] ⥠wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptIt’s easy to get caught up in what the world offers but you have to strip it away. The paychecks, accolades, magazine covers, awards, and validation from people and peers. Those things fuel the ego. Strip them away and get back to what … […]
February 6th, 2008 at 10:17 amMATTHEW 7:7,8
LUKE 18:1-8
Josh,
You are saying something, Man. I’m opposed to Bono’s politics, coming from the World Economic Forum. But the concept of discovering what God designed you for is Right On.
Keep musing,
February 6th, 2008 at 4:57 pmScott
Thanks Scott,
Shrewd reading.
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.
Gotta love the persistent widow as well.
Thanks for reading and for the comments.
–jc
February 7th, 2008 at 1:51 pmgreat message, josh. this post resonates with the great lines from chariots of fire when liddell says, “God made me for a purpose. He made me for China. But He also made me fast, and when I run, I feel His pleasure. To give it up would be to hold Him in contempt.”
for the average joe, embracing what you were made to do CAN be done in concert with day to day living. splashing through the mud during last sunday’s long run or watching the sun rise during an early morning trail run this past wendesday, i kept telling myself, “man, this is SO worth it. i LOVE this feeling”. all it takes is that first step out the door.
this past year we had a new addition to the family. approaching his upbringing with this belief as a cornerstone of values is not only something that i feel is my duty, but also one of the best and most exciting legacies/examples i can pass on to him.
February 8th, 2008 at 11:35 amWow, another great blog Josh. It is amazing how the darkest days can bring the greatest clarity … How you can think you have life all figured out one minute and then something profound happens that makes you realize that you really didn’t have as much figured out as originally thought.
The idea of seizing the day and doing what you love is vital, but I actually think that sometimes it can be beneficial to keep what you love and are truly passionate about separate … For some people that may be an active choice but for so many of us, that is actually a reality. Our passion may exceed our actual talent (think of all the American Idol auditions for example). If we place too much focus on allowing that passion to become our life’s work and do not have the actual ability to make it happen, we can actually face so much disappointment that we actually lose the passion we had in the first place because now the focus is not on the simple joy we find in the act of doing it shifts to how WELL we are performing.
I am passionate about running. From a child who was on 4 inhalers and had asthma so bad she couldn’t even run 1 mile without having a potential hospitalization, running represents SO much that I have had to overcome … the friends and memories I have made because of the sport just continue to fuel my passion … BUT I noticed that the more I ran, the faster I wanted to become … how instead of running to celebrate having the TIME of my life … the time of the run was affecting how I felt about life. I had to stop and focus on all the reasons I ran in the first place and grab that passion back before the focus on the performance overcame the joy of the experience.
In a nutshell, I am not saying that if you have the opportunity to make a career out of what you love that you shouldn’t … gosh we would all LOVE to have that option, but for so many of us, it really isn’t an option. That is not being pessimistic, it is being realistic. Sure we may not all be able to be professional athletes, supermodels, artists, musicians, etc. … but we do not have to do it as our career in order for it to be a part of our lives. All we have to do is allow ourselves to continually be driven by those things and people we are most passionate about and never turn our back on anything or anyone that we love.
February 9th, 2008 at 9:20 pmAlthough we may not all be able to be the best at every thing we love, we do all have the ability of being the best version of ourselves in every role we serve … friend, mother, father, husband, wife … If we can truly be great to all of the wonderful people in our lives, then everything else is just icing on the cake.
Howdy,
Loved this post.
Very moving and inspiring.
A great quote:
“Being passionate about something makes people nervous. It means you have something to die for while they are still searching for something to live for. ” - MW
February 13th, 2008 at 9:07 pmJC and the Boys,
“I lived on Smart Start cereal, PowerBars and Bisquik (for real!)” Freaking awesome! I was laughing out loud when I read that, only because I remember it all too well. I don’t know how you survived those few years man; smoke and mirrors I guess. Or it could have been someone with the same initials as you whose got your back, I don’t know…
Good stuff as always. I hope that the people reading this really grasp all of your points. Especially your bachelorette story about luck. Most people just don’t get it. What happens to you in this life is not an accident. Your reponses to circumstance, through a series of choices, will be the sole determinant of where you land in life. God has laid it all out for us, but it’s our decision to be obedient or not. But being obedient is easier said than done. I loved what you said about how, “If running were easy, everyone would do it”. How true it is! God did say that the “gate is small”, so it will tough to get through. But people usually forget that God also said that, “NARROW IS THE PATH”!! So it’s awesome that you can get through the gate, but your only halfway there! However, we all can do it. And the reward is tremendous, wouldn’t you say?
Now I’m off topic a bit, sorry! I’m also energized by reading what you write. I needed that this morning. headed down to Mexico right now for the day. No it’s not what you think. I gave up the TJ trips in high school! Keep doing what you’re doing man. Tell Carrie I said hello. love ya bro’..
February 14th, 2008 at 11:02 am–vc
Thanks for all the comments and feedback.
Tom, sorry your comment didn’t post over here. I appreciate the kind words at this blog’s vacation spot - my MySpace.
“Josh, I commented on the other page. But this is Gold and worthy of memorization. I hope everyone is blessed after reading this, and encouraged to pursue passionately their dreams and SINGULAR destiny for which he or she was born.
Brilliant.”
Vincent Clark - my black brother from another mother. [We’re best friends and after 20 years of friendship I’m allowed to say that - so save the emails.] Thanks for your words. Indeed, choices, not luck, have everything to do with following your heart and doing what you love. Talent alone will only take us so far.
Like we always say:
Talent + 50 cents = bag o’ chips.
Click on Vincent’s name above and check out his brother Tony’s new athletic line - Beginning and the End. Very cool gear - keep an eye on it - good things are in store. Also, keep an eye out for TC in the SD Padre uniform this summer. I bet Tony - along with his thousand jump shots before high school, his time logged in the weight room, time spent in the batting cage and fielding ground balls - would probably have something to share about him being “lucky” that he has been in the big leagues for 13 years.
“Narrow is the Path” – I could write a book on that one.
Jeff, best wishes in leaving a lasting legacy.
Jessica, loved the quote, thanks for the input.
Jodi, thanks for your comment here and the email on the other site. No harm, no foul. Once I figure out how to have 30 hours in day I think I may have just enough time to reply.
Jodi, you are entitled to your opinion, even if yours happens to be totally, dead wrong. I’m right, you’re wrong - I’ve liked saying that since I was a kid.
If we were all right then we’d live in a boring pluralistic society. There are absolute truths. Men who abandon their families while an enemy attacks are cowards – no matter what the culture.
Truth is narrow; this is the very core of truth. It has become painfully obvious that monogamy has become very hard to come by in ever sense of the word. Pluralism appeases but pluralism is nonsensical. 1 + 1 = 2, even if millions find it offensive to say it can only equal 2. To say we are all right is absurd.
Hegel was quite wrong, pluralism is a great way never to have to make a real choice about anything.
Law of identity, law of excluded middle, law of non-contradiction - a thing simply cannot be both true and untrue in the same instant. Like Kierkegaard said, Either/Or. Goodhearted and well-intentioned men take great care as to not to offend each other and have said that everyone is right. But the goodhearted grade school teacher giving passing reading grades to her illiterate students has done far more damage than good and commits the worst sort of crime. Although the student may delight in seeing the passing grade, their delight will be short lived. Some day they’ll have no idea where they’re going and need to read a road sign…
Sorry, I get carried away. I’m like that massive runaway snowball cartoon that bulldozes through the crowds and has all the people’s legs sticking out of it. What am I talking about? Oh yeah, the blog. Go away Vince; your tangents are rubbing off on me.
February 20th, 2008 at 4:27 amSeriously Jodi, I get what you’re saying. I’ll tackle it in the next blog.
And the time is wrong, it’s not really 1:25AM PST… Um, I’m in Hawaii so it’s much, much earlier.
Ha … no I am right, you are wrong! Ha ! Yes banter is good for the mind and the soul. I am looking forward to the next blog. Seriously though I don’t really think our views are dead opposite from one another because I agree with you whole-heartedly that we should live our life committed to our passion … my whole point was how can we preserve the passion for what we love, keep the purity of the experience without letting the focus on performance chip the passion away?
Thanks for writing back … look forward to the next installment of the Cox Chronicles : )
February 20th, 2008 at 11:51 am[…] It’s closing time. Clear the dance floor and move toward the exits. Club Latin is shutting down. The night was fun, the music was great but everything with a beginning has an end. Temet Nosce, Carpe Diem… Ad Finem. The music has stopped, the lights are on, but as the bouncers usher you out I hand you a promoter’s card—don’t worry, it’s nothing scandalous, I’m like Kix®, kid-tested and mother approved. Well, most mothers. We’ll begin with Jodi’s comment from “Carpe Diem“: “Our passion may exceed our actual talent (think of all the American Idol auditions for example). If we place too much focus on allowing that passion to become our life’s work and do not have the actual ability to make it happen, [we face disappointment] … gosh we would all LOVE to have [the opportunity to make a career out of what we love], but for so many of us, it really isn’t an option. That is not being pessimistic, it is being realistic.” […]
February 26th, 2008 at 12:26 pmThanks for this great, thoughtful post. I think a lot of us are out there afraid of living our dreams and instead settle for something that’s average and pays the bills instead of daring to take a risk to do what we were meant to. Sometimes a little inspiration is all we need.
October 23rd, 2008 at 2:43 pm