R.A.D.I.C.A.L. Thoughts

"Every recruit here, whether he is fat or skinny, tall or short, fast or slow, has the ability to become a United States Marine, if you can develop self-discipline and spirit."
Staff Sargeant Rowlands - from the book Making the Corps

Well, I'm back to the Marine Corps! I woke up too late to meet my walking partner this morning. When I did wake up it was chilly and dark and dreary. The night before I had had wine with dinner and gone to bed late after a weekend trip. I had every excuse in the world! But then, for some reason, I thought about the Marines. And I remembered the part of the book and the quote above and did my walk. The thing about Marine Boot Camp is you don't have a choice, really. There is someone turning on a bright light and yelling in your face to "GET YOUR LAZY REAR IN GEAR!" and then there are all those other guys who are getting up, who will all be punished if you don't get up. With us, it's usually just us. No one yelling, no one for moral support. We can easily turn over and go back to sleep. But what do we get if we do that? We lose power. We lose fitness. We lose the understanding that we are in charge and we can achieve what we want with "self-discipline and spirit." A little farther in the book, there are words written on a pillar where the recruits meet for their morning run. The words are "CORE VALUES; HONOR, COURAGE, COMMITMENT." These are things that "come before the self," explains the Sargeant. Today, let's think about what comes before our "self." We each have the ability to rise above this divorce in an amazing way. We can if we develop "self-discipline and spirit." And the life we create can be brim full and overflowing with powerful, lovely, good things, so just GET YOUR REAR IN GEAR and get to it!

"For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline."
2 Timothy 1:7 (NIV)