“Women make you weak.”—John Durham
My high school football coach had a lot of memorable sayings. (This is probably true for most coaches in the ‘70s.) He was even quoted in Sports Illustrated when he said (after one of my team’s games): “I told them to watch the fake, and that’s what they did. They watched the fake.” I am often reminded of one of his favorite phrases—“Women make you weak.” Holding hands and playing kissy-face with your girlfriend in the hallways at school (which was never a problem for me, sadly) was a ticket to doing shoulder rolls after practice. What I learned from the statement, though, is that coach wanted us to avoid distractions.
Years later, I continue to use the phrase. In teaching a weight training course a number of years ago, I was leading the class in “100s” (a series of partnered push-up involving 3-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-3 repetitions). Midway through the exercise, I see Jonathan on one hand waving at a girl across the gym—“Women make you weak.” Same school, I had another student who would often miss open weight-room hours because “Nancy (his girlfiend) wanted to hang out.”
Now, of course, women can and do make men strong, and the quote could equally be “men make you weak”. The point is that there are things that can distract us from the opportunities we have to better ourselves. These we need to identify and eliminate. They may be people or that may be activities. They are anything that take time and effort away from our growth plans—Spiritual, Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, and/or Social.
The people and activities in which we invest ourselves—or allow to have power over us—make or break our success. “Opportunity costs.” Choose wisely!
Be your best today; be better tomorrow.
Carpe momento!