Steven Pressfield

An excerpt from an interview between Goodread and Steven Pressfield :

GR: Describe a typical day spent writing. Do you have any unusual writing habits?

SP: I fiddle around for a long time, all morning usually, before I finally overcome Resistance and get down to work. I try to be as stupid as possible. I just let it rip and try not to censor anything. My goal is just to get something down, good or bad, and K.B.O., Keep Buggering On. I'm very superstitious. I collect pennies. I have a little cannon on my desk that I point at me, to fire inspiration into me. That's only the beginning. They say there's no such thing as writing, only rewriting. I'd divide the activity into two. Yes, there's writing. You have to be fearless and keep grinding, day after day, month after month. Then there's rewriting. That's almost as hard but not as scary. I try to stay as dumb as possible. Don't think about it, do it.

To read the whole interview visit:

http://www.goodreads.com/interviews/steven_pressfield?utm_medium=email&utm_source=June_newsletter

A Big Heart

Great video! The heart gets smaller when the people don't receive her love, it gets big again and restores her faith when she meets someone who is willing to receive her love.

Randy Pausch

Randy Pausch passed away on 25th July 2008 after battling pancreatic cancer. His speech 'The Last Lecture' about Achieving Your Childhood Dreams, spread through the internet with 10 million views. The following is a reprise of his last lecture on Oprah.

Sweden's Ice Hotel

An ice hotel is a temporary hotel made up entirely of snow and sculpted blocks of ice. They are promoted by their sponsors and have special features for travelers who are interested in novelties and unusual environments, and thus are in the class of destination hotels. Their lobbies are often filled with ice sculptures, and food and beverages are specially chosen for the circumstances.

All of the ice hotels are reconstructed every year, and are dependent upon constant sub-zero temperatures during construction and operation. The walls, fixtures, and fittings are made entirely of ice, and are held together using a substance known as snice, which takes the place of mortar in a traditional brick built hotel.



The ice hotel near the village of Jukkasjärvi, Kiruna, Sweden was the world's first ice hotel. In 1989, Japanese ice artists visited the area and created an exhibition of ice art. In Spring 1990, French artist Jannot Derid held an exhibition in a cylinder-shaped igloo in the area. One night there were no rooms available in the town, so some of the visitors asked for permission to spend the night in the exhibition hall. They slept in sleeping bags on top of reindeer skin - the first guests of the "hotel."

The entire hotel is made completely out of ice blocks taken from the Torne River - even the glasses in the bar are made of ice. The hotel has more than 80 rooms and suites, a bar, reception area and church. The hotel only exists between December and April. Each room is unique and the architecture of the hotel is changed each year, as it is rebuilt from scratch.

Jeff Skoll: Making movies that make change

'Betting on good people doing good things'

Live life like you were dying

The Butterfly Effect

As I drove my daughter to school this morning I got stuck in a pile up on a side road with cars trying to inch their way through in both directions. There was honking, some drivers just sat there without knowing what actually the problem was. I sat for a couple of minutes and then knew I had to do something , otherwise we would be there forever since no one was trying to figure out what was happening. I moved my car an inch which made the car opposite me move an inch and then the car in front of me moved an inch and sudenly all the cars started moving an inch. I moved another inch, the other cars followed and hey presto we were all moving again. The power of the butterfly effect, I thought to myself.

The Butterfly Effect
Oasis - Stop Crying Your Heart Out

Hold up hold on don't be scared
You'll never change what's been and gone

May your smile. Shine on. Don't be scared
Your destiny may keep you warm.

Cos all of the stars are fading away
Just try not to worry you'll see them some day
Take what you need and be on your way
And stop crying your heart out

Get up. Come on why you scared
You'll never change what been and gone

Its never too late

Did you know that the illustrator William Steig , who created the character Shrek was 82 years old when he created the grouchy yet gentle Shrek for a children's book in 1990 ? Eleven years later, the movie Shrek became an international hit and won the2002 Oscar for best animated film.

Therefore its never too late to fulfil that dream, or its never too late to love or as George Eliot said its never too late to be what you wanted to be.

Live your life the best you can and if you want to do something in your life 'its never too late'.

The following song by Hedley expresses it nicely.

Mindfulness

Jon Kabat-Zinn talks to Google about mindfulness.

The Raindrop

For the raindrop, joy is in entering the river-
Unbearable pain becomes its own cure,
Travel far enough into sorrow, tears turn into sighing;
In this way we learn how water can die into air,
When, after heavy rain, the storm clouds disperse,
is it not that they’ve wept themselves clear to the end?
If you want to know the miracle, how wind can polish a mirror,
Look: the shining glass grows green in Spring.
It’s the rose’s unfolding, Ghalib, that creates the desire to see-
In every color and circumstance, may the eyes be open for what comes.

Ghalib

The breeze at dawn

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.

Don't go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.

Don't go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill

where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.

Don't go back to sleep.

Rumi

Moving Water

When you do things from your soul, you feel a river

moving in you, a joy.

When actions come from another section, the feeling

disappears. Don't let others lead you. They may be blind or, worse, vultures.

Reach for the rope of God. And what is that? Putting aside self-will.

Because of willfulness people sit in jail, the trapped bird's wings are tied,

fish sizzle in the skillet.

The anger of police is willfulness. You've seen a magistrate

inflict visible punishment. Now see the invisible. If you could leave your


selfishness, you

would see how you've



been torturing your soul. We are born and live inside black water in a well.

How could we know what an open field of sunlight is?

Don't insist on going where you think you want to go. Ask the way to the spring.

Your living pieces will form a harmony. There is a moving palace that floats in the air

with balconies and clear water flowing through, infinity everywhere, yet contained

under a single tent.


RUMI

How it feels to have a stroke

The following is a TED talk. Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened -- as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding -- she studied and remembered every moment. This is a powerful story about how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another.

Tomorrow never comes

If I knew it would be the last time
that I'd see you fall asleep,
I would tuck you in more tightly
and pray the Lord, your soul to keep.

If I knew it would be the last time
that I see you walk out the door,
I would give you a hug and kiss
and call you back for one more.

If I knew it would be the last time
I’d hear your voice lifted up in praise,
I would videotape each action and word,
so I could play them back day after day.

If I knew it would be the last time,
I would spare an extra minute or two
to stop and say "I love you,"
instead of assuming you would know I do.

If I knew it would be the last time
I would be there to share your day,
Well I'm sure you'll have so many more,
so I can let just this one slip away.

For surely there's always tomorrow
to make up for an oversight,
and we always get a second chance
to make everything right.

There will always be another day
to say "I love you,"
and certainly there's another chance
to say our "Anything I can do's?"

But just in case I might be wrong,
and today is all I get,
I'd like to say how much I love you
and I hope we never forget,
tomorrow is not promised to anyone,
young or old alike.
And today may be the last chance you get
to hold your loved one tight.

So if you're waiting for tomorrow,
why not do it today?
For if tomorrow never comes,
you'll surely regret the day
that you didn't take that extra time
for a smile, a hug, or a kiss,
and you were too busy to grant someone,
what turned out to be their one last wish.

So hold your loved ones close today,
whisper in their ear,
tell them how much you love them
and that you'll always hold them dear.

Take time to say "I'm sorry,"
"please forgive me," "thank you," or "it's okay."
And if tomorrow never comes,
you'll have no regrets about today.

By Norma Cornett Marek

A Native Indian Story- Jumping Mouse

One time there was a mouse who lived with other mice and this little mouse kept hearing a roaring in his ears. He couldn't figure out what it was. All the time, everywhere he went, as he went about his mouse's business, his little whiskers going, looking into nooks and crannies, gathering things, taking seeds from one place to another, he kept hearing this roaring and he wondered what it was. Sometimes he would ask the other mice, "I hear this roaring in my ears, what is it?" And the other mice always said, "We don't hear anything. You must be crazy, get back to work. Accumulate!" So he got back to work, being a mouse, and did all the things that mice do, but he couldn't get the roaring out of his ears and finally he resolved that he would try to find out what it was.

Very timidly he went just to the edge of where the mice were living around the roots of trees and bushes. As soon as he got outside of where the mice lived, he saw a raccoon and the racoon said, "Hello, little brother," and he looked up and said, "Hello, brother." And he said, "You know, I hear this roaring in my ears all the time and I wonder what it is." The racoon said, "Oh, that's easy. I know what that is, that's the great river and I go there every day to wash my food." Little Mouse was really excited because this was the first time that anyone had ever said that what he heard was real and so he started scheming in his mouse's way about how he would take the proof back to all the other mice and then they wouldn't think he was strange anymore. So racoon said, "Yes, I'll take you to the river," and little mouse followed along behind him.

Finally they got to the edge of the great river, to a little eddy on the great river, but little mouse had never seen anything like that before in his life, this fantastic expanse of water. Where mice live the only water they see is rainwater and dew. They don't see big bodies of water, and to little mouse it was just immense and he timidly went up to the edge of the water. He looked in and he freaked because he saw a mouse in there! He jumped back but nothing happened and he looked again and he saw, yes, it's a mouse in there. He'd seen his own reflection for the first time.

The racoon led him down to the bank of the river and at one place he put his hand in and tasted the water and finally the racoon said, "I have to go about my business and find food and wash it in the river, but I'll take you to a friend of mine." So racoon took little mouse to his brother, Frog.

There was a big green frog sitting on the edge of the river, sort of half in and half out. Little mouse said to him, "Hello, brother," and the frog replied, "Hello, brother." And they talked for awhile and the frog told him all about his life, about how he had been given the gift to live half in the water and half out of the water. He was all green on top and white underneath. He told little mouse, "When thunderbird flies you will always find me here but when winter- man comes I will be gone." That sounded pretty good to little mouse and then the frog said to him, "Do you want a medicine?" Little mouse said, "Sure, I'd like a medicine, yes." And then the frog said, "O. K., just crouch down as low as you can get and then jump up as high as you can jump."

So little mouse did that. He got down as low as he could go and then he jumped up as high as a mouse could jump. And when he jumped up he saw the sacred mountains and then he fell back down and fell into the water.

Nothing like this had ever happened to him before and he scurried out of the water and he was really mad. He said, "You tricked me, that's no medicine, I fell in the water." And the frog said, "Yes, you fell in the water. You're wet. But you're safe, you're alive, aren't you?" And little mouse said, "Yes, I am." And the frog said to him, "What did you see when you jumped up?" Little mouse said, "Oh, yes, yes. I saw the sacred mountains." And the frog said to him, "You have a new name. Your name is Jumping Mouse."

Jumping Mouse thanks the frog for having taught him and then he says, "It's time to go back to my people. I want to tell them about the sacred mountains." He has really changed. Instead of saying, "I want to prove to those bastards that the river really exists," now he is just excited. He's seen the sacred mountains and he wants to go back and share his vision with his people. He speaks in innocence because he has learned from the frog. He wants to go back in innocence to tell them about it, and in innocence he will be able to return. The frog tells him, "It's easy to go back to your people. Just keep the sound of the river behind you. The roaring that you heard is now your medicine. You know what it is and you can return to your people."

Mice are unable to go in a straight line because they can see close but with the medicine behind him Jumping Mouse can return. He has always heard it, but now he can navigate by it, he has a direction.

Jumping Mouse keeps the medicine behind him and goes back to where the other mice are living. He says to them, "You know that roaring in my ears? It was the great river and racoon took me there and I met a frog. The frog gave me a medicine and I jumped up and I saw the sacred mountains." But they looked at him really strangely because he was all wet. He had forgotten entirely about falling in the river but they started whispering among themselves. They said, "An animal must have had him in its mouth. There must be something wrong with him. There must be some pollution, something terrible that he was in the jaws of death and wasn't taken. Very dangerous person." They didn't even hear what he said about the sacred mountains.

Poor Jumping Mouse was just crestfallen at this because he had really wanted to tell them about what he had seen so they could see it too, but they couldn't. You cannot see through the eyes of another without giving him your eyes, and they were unable to do that. He stayed with them for a while because they were his people, but finally he resolved that he would go on and find the sacred mountains.

He told them about his resolve and they said, "You're insane, you can't do it, the spots will get you." They knew, all mice know, that out on the prairie eagles can swoop down and get mice. But mice do not know eagles. They are too distant from them and so they only see them as spots in the sky. They can see close into the little things of the earth but when they look up and far away they only see spots. And this is a paradox, but eagles when they are close to the ground only see things as a blur. The mice's fear of spots is real because eagles are real and really get mice, and Jumping Mouse was terrified but went on. Out onto the prairie he went, his whiskers feeling, dodging this way and that, feeling the spots pressing down on his back. The prairie is where the great animals meet and travel far and it is an alien place for a mouse. Jumping Mouse went out into it with his fear and finally he came to a circle of sweet sage.

The circle of sage was a haven, a cover from the spots, and sweet sage is a plant that you cannot eat but which is used by the Indians for incense, prayer, something healing and beautiful. There in the sweet sage was an old, old mouse. Long braids, an old mouse. Jumping Mouse was joyous to meet someone of his own kind he could talk to out in this alien place. The clump of sage was a haven and a paradise for mice. There were seeds and roots to crawl into and everything a mouse could want there. He went up to the old mouse and he said, "Grandfather, I heard a roaring in my ears and I have been to the great river." The old mouse said, "Yes, I too heard the roaring and I too have been to the great river." Jumping Mouse was really excited because for the first time he had found a mouse who had shared his experience. So they talked about the river and the common things they knew. Jumping Mouse was more and more excited and he said, "And then I met the frog and he told me to jump up and I jumped up and I saw the sacred mountains." The old mouse was silent for a long time and finally said, "My grandson, the great river is real and we have both been there and tasted its water, but the sacred mountains are just a myth. They don't exist." Jumping Mouse was just crushed and disappointed by this and the old mouse said to him, "Stay with me and grow old with me here. This is a perfect place for mice and we have both been further than any other mouse."

Jumping Mouse resolves to go on and the old mouse is really upset. He says, "You can't do that, the spots will get you." But Jumping Mouse is resolved and he leaves the old mouse in the sage. He goes out onto the prairie and he is really afraid. He can feel the spots, just feel them pressing in. Knows that they are there every moment; his little whiskers are going fast and finally he gets out to the middle of the prairie and comes to a stand of chokecherry bushes. Chokecherries are good to eat but they make you fantastically thirsty. The more you eat, the more thirst you have.

Jumping Mouse is out of breath and thankful for a safe haven and cover from the spots and as he lies there panting, he hears a great sighing slowly, up and down. And he looks up and sees that it is a great animal. Jumping Mouse thinks, "I am so small and this great being is so large," and he forgets his fear in his awe and goes up to the animal and says, "Hello, great brother," and it replies, "Hello, little brother," and Jumping Mouse asks, "Who are you?" and he says, "I am a Buffalo and I am dying." When he hears this, little mouse is overcome with sadness that this great being that he has just met is dying and he says to him, "What can I do to make you well? Is there any medicine that will make you well?" And the buffalo says, "I have talked with my medicine and it has told me that there is only one thing that will make me well, and that is the eye of a mouse, and there is no such thing as a mouse."

Jumping Mouse was just freaked by this and he ran back, his little whiskers going, his tail behind him until he reached some cover. But from a safe place he heard the breathing again, getting slower and slower, and he felt a tremendous compassion for the buffalo. "I am so small," he thought, "and the buffalo is so great and so beautiful." Finally he came out from his hole, taking two steps forward and one step back, his tail dragging, but resolved to speak to his great brother. "I want to tell you something," he said, " there is such a thing as a mouse and I am a mouse."

"Thank you very much, little brother," the buffalo replied. "I will die happy knowing that there is such a thing as a mouse. But it is too much to ask of you to give one of your eyes." But Jumping Mouse told him, "No, I am so small and you are so great that I would like to give you one of my eyes and make you well." And immediately as he said that, one of his eyes flew out of his head and the Buffalo jumped up, strong and powerful, his hooves pounding on the earth and his great head dancing and hooking. He was strong and he said, "I know who you are. You are Jumping Mouse and you have been to the river and jumped up and seen the sacred mountains. You are on your way to them. I can guide you across the prairie, for I am one of the great beings of the prairie. Run underneath me. I know you are afraid of the spots, and I will protect you from them. You will be safe and I will take you across the prairie right to the edge of the sacred mountains. But I can't take you farther than that because I am a creature of the prairie and I must stay here to give away to the people. If I go up onto the sacred mountains it will be too steep and I will fall and crush you."

So Jumping Mouse runs underneath the buffalo across the prairie, his hooves just pounding, dust flying, shaking the earth and little mouse is frightened at the great power of the buffalo. He knows he is safe but this is worse, trying to keep up with a goddam buffalo! Finally they get to the edge of the prairie and he is really exhausted and he comes creeping out from underneath the great buffalo, thankful to be alive. He looks up at the great gift and he says, "That was really something!" And the buffalo says, "You didn't need to worry, little brother. I am a buffalo and I know where I place every footstep. I am a great dancer and light on my feet. I could see you underneath me all the way and you were perfectly safe."

So the buffalo left Jumping Mouse at the edge of the sacred mountains, and he looks around. Who should he see now but a wolf, sitting there - a big beautiful wolf, just sitting on his haunches, kind of looking around one place or another. And he goes up to him and he says, "Hello, brother Wolf." And the wolf says, "Wolf, wolf, yes, I'm a wolf, wolf, yes, wolf," and then he sort of sits back and a beatific grin comes across his and he doesn't say any more. His mind wanders, slips away. And Jumping Mouse can't figure that out. What the hell's going on? So he comes up again and he says, "Hello, brother wolf," and the wolf says "Wolf, wolf, yes wolf, wolf yes, I'm a wolf, yes," and his voice trails off as his mind slips again.

So Jumping Mouse wonders what is going on and he goes a little distance away and he listens to the beating of his heart; the sound of his heart is beating like a drum inside him. And he remembered all the thing that have happened to him. He remembered that when the buffalo was dying the thing that would make him well was the eye of a mouse and he figures that's good medicine. "I've got good medicine, a lot of power in the eye of a mouse." And he resolves that he will give his other eye to the wolf and that will make him well. So he goes up to the wolf and he says, "Brother wolf," and the wolf begins to say, "Wolf, wolf" but Jumping Mouse stops him and says, "I want to give you one of my eyes," and immediately his eye, his last eye, is gone and he's blind, and the wolf jumps up and says, Yes, I'm a wolf. I know who you are. You are Jumping Mouse. You have been to the great river, the frog has shown you the sacred mountains, the buffalo has brought you to me, and I can guide you to the medicine lake at the top of the sacred mountains."

Little mouse is blind now, and all he has is his whiskers. He can touch but he has given up all his old ways of seeing. He can only touch things close now. The wolf takes him up from the prairie, through the pines, "stands-in-place," Finally they get to the open country at the top of the mountain. There are no trees there, no cover, nothing for a mouse. They get to the edge of the medicine lake and the wolf tells him, "We are here. We are at the medicine lake." And he sits Jumping Mouse down by it.

Jumping Mouse takes his hand and puts it in the water and tastes it, and it's good, it's beautiful. And then the wolf describes to him what he can see in the medicine lake. He says, "In the medicine lake are reflected all the lodges of the people. The whole world is reflected there. The medicine lake is the reflection. It is a symbol of the reflection. They sit there and Jumping Mouse knows that it is time for the wolf to go about his business and travel to other parts of the world. It is time for the eagles to get him. It is an open place and as soon as his guide is gone the eagles will see him and come. He is blind and he can't see them. The wolf feels tremendous compassion and feeling for Jumping Mouse his brother, and his heart stretches out to him, and the wolf cries. Then he leaves and Jumping Mouse is left alone, blind, nothing but looking within, and he can feel the spots on his back, just pressing in, hard. And then he hears the rush of wind and wings and then there is a fantastic shock and everything is black.

The next thing he knows, he can see colours. He can see! He can see colours. And he's amazed, astounded, he doesn't know if he's dreaming or what is happening. But he's alive and he can see colours. Then he sees a blur of colours moving toward him, something green and white moving his way and from the colours comes a voice. "You want a medicine?" And Jumping Mouse says, "Yes, I'd like a medicine." And the voice says, "Just get down as far as you can and jump up as high as you can jump." So little mouse gets down as low as he can and jumps up as high as he can jump, and when he does, the wind catches him and swirls him up and up and up in the air. And the voice calls out from below him, "Grab hold of the wind!" So little mouse reaches out and grabs hold of the wind as hard as he can, and the wind takes him higher and higher until everything begins to get clearer and clearer. Crystal clear, and he can see all the great beings of the prairie, the buffalo, the wolf on the mountain, and he looks down into the medicine lake and there are all the lodges of the people reflected, and on the edge of the medicine lake he sees his friend the frog. He calls down to him, "Hello, brother Frog," and the frog calls back to him, "Hello, brother Eagle."

A beautiful poem...

To an English Friend in Africa

Be grateful for freedom
To see other dreams.
Bless your loneliness as much as you drank
Of your former companionships.
All that you are experiencing now
Will become moods of future joys
So bless it all.
Do not think your ways superior
To another's
Do not venture to judge
But see things with fresh and open eyes
Do not condemn
But praise what you can
And when you can't be silent.

Time is now a gift for you
A gift of freedom
To think and remember and understand
The ever perplexing past
And to re-create yourself anew
In order to transform time.

Live while you are alive.
Learn the ways of silence and wisdom
Learn to act, learn a new speech
Learn to be what you are in the seed of your spirit
Learn to free yourself from all things that have moulded you
And which limit your secret and undiscovered road.

Remember that all things which happen
To you are raw materials
Endlessly fertile

Endlessly yielding of thoughts that could change
Your life and go on doing for ever.

Never forget to pray and be thankful
For all the things good or bad on the rich road;
For everything is changeable
So long as you live while you are alive.

Fear not, but be full of light and love;
Fear not but be alert and receptive;
Fear not but act decisively when you should;
Fear not, but know when to stop;
Fear not for you are loved by me;
Fear not, for death is not the real terror,
But life -magically - is.

Be joyful in your silence
Be strong in your patience
Do not try to wrestle with the universe
But be sometimes like water or air
Sometimes like fire

Live slowly, think slowly, for time is a mystery.
Never forget that love
Requires that you be
The greatest person you are capable of being,
Self-generating and strong and gentle-
Your own hero and star.

Love demands the best in us
To always and in time overcome the worst
And lowest in our souls.
Love the world wisely.

It is love alone that is the greatest weapon
And the deepest and hardest secret.

So fear not, my friend.
The darkness is gentler than you think.
Be grateful for the manifold
Dreams of creation
And the many ways of unnumbered peoples.

Be grateful for life as you live it.
And may a wonderful light
Always guide you on the unfolding road.

March 1991
Ben Okri

Aikido

Something Inspiring...

I try to be a good father. Give my kids mulligans. Work nights to pay For their text messaging. Take them to swimsuit shoots.

But compared with Dick Hoyt, I suck.

Eighty-five times he's pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in Marathons. Eight times he's not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a Wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and Pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars--all in the same day.

Dick's also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back Mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. On a bike. Makes Taking your son bowling look a little lame, right?

And what has Rick done for his father? Not much--except save his life.
This love story began in Winchester , Mass. , 43 years ago, when Rick Was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him Brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs.

"He'll be a vegetable the rest of his life;'' Dick says doctors told him And his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. ``Put him in an Institution.''

But the Hoyts weren't buying it. They noticed the way Rick's eyes Followed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the Engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was Anything to help the boy communicate. ``No way,'' Dick says he was told. ``There's nothing going on in his brain.''

"Tell him a joke,'' Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out a Lot was going on in his brain. Rigged up with a computer that allowed Him to control the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his Head, Rick was finally able to communicate. First words? ``Go Bruins!'' And after a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the School organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, ``Dad, I want To do that.''

Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described ``porker'' who never ran More than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he Tried. ``Then it was me who was handicapped,'' Dick says. ``I was sore For two weeks.''

That day changed Rick's life. ``Dad,'' he typed, ``when we were running, It felt like I wasn't disabled anymore!''

And that sentence changed Dick's life. He became obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into such hard-belly Shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon.

``No way,'' Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts weren't quite a Single runner, and they weren't quite a wheelchair competitor. For a few Years Dick and Rick just joined the massive field and ran anyway, then They found a way to get into the race Officially: In 1983 they ran another marathon so fast they made the Qualifying time for Boston the following year.

Then somebody said, ``Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?''

How's a guy who never learned to swim and hadn't ridden a bike since he Was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon? Still, Dick Tried.

Now they've done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour Ironmans in Hawaii . It must be a buzzkill to be a 25-year-old stud Getting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don't you Think?

Hey, Dick, why not see how you'd do on your own? ``No way,'' he says. Dick does it purely for ``the awesome feeling'' he gets seeing Rick with A cantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ride together.

This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their best Time? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992--only 35 minutes off the world Record, which, in case you don't keep track of these things, happens to Be held by a guy who was not pushing another man in a wheelchair at the Time.

``No question about it,'' Rick types. ``My dad is the Father of the Century.''

And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two years ago he had a Mild heart attack during a race. Doctors found that one of his arteries Was 95% clogged. ``If you hadn't been in such great shape,'' One doctor told him, ``you probably would've died 15 years ago.'' So, in a way, Dick and Rick saved each other's life.

Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston, and Dick, retired from the military and living in Holland, Mass. , always find ways to be together. They give speeches around the country and compete in some backbreaking race every weekend, including this Father's Day.

That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he really wants to give him is a gift he can never buy.

``The thing I'd most like,'' Rick types, ``is that my dad sit in the chair and I push him once.''

Article was originally written by Rick Reilly of Sports Illustrated

As a Man Thinketh

Some inspiring quotes from James Allen :

Your circumstances may be uncongenial, but they shall not remain so if you only perceive an ideal and strive to reach it. You can't travel within and stand still without. Here is a youth hard pressed by poverty and labor. Confined long hours in an unhealthy workshop; unschooled and lacking all the arts of refinement. But he dreams of better things. He thinks of intelligence, or refinement, of grace and beauty. He conceives of, mentally builds up, an ideal condition of life. The wider liberty and a larger scope takes possession of him; unrest urges him to action, and he uses all his spare times and means to the development of his latent powers and resources. Very soon so altered has his mind become that the workshop can no longer hold him. It has become so out of harmony with his mind-set that it falls out of his life as a garment is cast aside. And with the growth of opportunities that fit the scope of his expanding powers, he passes out of it altogether. Years later we see this youth as a grown man. We find him a master of certain forces of the mind that he wields with world-wide influence and almost unequaled power. In his hands he holds the cords of gigantic responsibilities; he speaks and lives are changed; men and women hang upon his words and remold their characters. Sun-like, he becomes the fixed and luminous center around which innumerable destinies revolve. He has become the vision of his youth. He has become one with his ideal.

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Tempest-tossed souls, wherever you may be, under whatever conditions you may live, know this: In the ocean of life the isles of blessedness are smiling and the sunny shore of your ideal awaits your coming. Keep your hands firmly upon the helm of thought. In the core of your soul reclines the commanding Master; He does but sleep; wake Him. Self-control is strength. Right thought is mastery. Calmness is power. Say unto your heart, "Peace. Be still."

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The weakest soul knowing its own weakness, and believing this truth--that strength can only be developed by effort and practice--will, thus believing, at once begin to exert itself. And, adding effort to effort, patience to patience, and strength to strength, will never cease to develop and will at last grow divinely strong.