Guy Reams (00:01.646)
This is day 365, mission accomplished times eight. This is the last day of my eighth consecutive 365 commitment. Every time I arrive at this point, I ask whether tomorrow should be day 2,921 or day one. I'm choosing day one again. Then comes the real question, day one of what? That I have learned is the essential inquiry.
My 365 commitment is a covenant I make with myself and with God, if he chooses to listen, that I will undertake some Herculean effort for 365 days in a row and that in return, I will receive some great boom. Over time, I realized that the best commitments and the ones most likely to be noticed by divinity are greater than my own motives. The boon I seek may be personal,
Yet the commitment itself must be bigger. It should serve my family, my community, my society. Another lesson is that layups do not count. I cannot design an easy pledge and expect it to matter. Each subsequent 365 commitment must raise the stakes of it. After I speak it out loud, I should feel a measure of fear and trepidation about what I'm about to undertake. The work should cost me something.
In the early stretches, it ought to sting a little. In the middle, it should grind. Toward the end, it may grow a little easier, yet the day-to-day effort still needs to press me to make me suffer just enough that the prize is worthy of the price. This may sound strange, but every time I have done this, I kept the commitment and the boon I sought didn't actually arrive. Perhaps I should have aimed a little higher. Perhaps I should have asked for more.
Even so, I sense that I receive in proportion to what I give. It feels like a law woven into the fabric of the universe somehow. One final reminder to myself, this is something I must choose every day. As I like to say, every day is every day, and it begins tomorrow. I commit now. I take the first hard step. And when the next day comes, I ride at dawn.