The first home I bought was\u00a0arguably the smallest dwelling among the lush estates in Benedict Canyon. I\u00a0needed to move, they were selling the house I was renting, and it was the only place\u00a0I found in a decent neighborhood that I could afford. I called it the Doll\u00a0House. It was two stories, one cylinder stacked on top of the other, which made\u00a0it feel even smaller. It was located in the 90210 zip code, a much sought after\u00a0address. The reality show of the same name was all the rage at the time, everybody\u00a0wanted to live in Beverly Hills, but in this case, the status symbol didn\u2019t\u00a0deliver.<\/p>\n
The garage was too tight for a\u00a0sedan, there was next to no parking on the street, the undersized breakfast\u00a0nook doubled as a dining room, the steps of the staircase were so narrow, they\u00a0were a hazard and the ceilings were so low, it seemed like I might graze the\u00a0top of my head when I got out of bed in the morning. I felt like Alice in
Wonderland in her blue pinafore after she ate a cookie that made her grow so\u00a0tall, she had to throw an arm out the window and a leg up the chimney to fit\u00a0into the room. I think you get the picture. But the above is only setup for\u00a0what comes next.<\/p>\n
I lived in the Doll House for a\u00a0year with a musician boyfriend who stayed up all night listening to music and\u00a0God knows what else. I went to sleep on the early side, and when I woke up a little\u00a0after dawn, he had just gone to bed. My first book had been published by Simon\u00a0& Schuster the year prior, it had done well, and I was determined to write\u00a0the next one. I refused to use the close quarters as a reason not to write, so\u00a0each morning, I made coffee, put my laptop on the wooden table in the breakfast\u00a0nook\/dining room and wrote for several hours while my boyfriend slept. When I\u00a0finished the book and submitted it, I was glad I hadn’t given up. Whether or\u00a0not a publisher would want to buy it, I had no idea, but I had done it. Instead\u00a0of feeling guilty, I felt accomplished.<\/p>\n
If we could be as diligent with our\u00a0creative projects as we are in finding reasons not to do them, we\u2019d be masters\u00a0in our craft. But there are often obstacles to overcome. I\u2019m presently having a\u00a0deck rebuilt, and yesterday, when I was working out with my online trainer, there\u00a0was constant banging, whirring of an electrical sander and loud Mariachi music\u00a0playing. Even though I closed the windows to muffle the sound, I could barely\u00a0hear my trainer\u2019s voice on my iPad. There was a part of me, a large part, that\u00a0wanted to give up and stop the session. I considered it quite seriously for a\u00a0minute or two until I said, No! out loud and carried on. Maybe it was my rigorous
ballet training that had taught me to never miss a training session, even when\u00a0I was injured. Maybe it was my meditation practice that had taught me to ignore\u00a0anything on the outside. Whatever it was, there was no way I was going to let\u00a0anything stop me and when the hour was over, I felt the afterglow of having\u00a0pushed myself physically and mentally.<\/p>\n
Along with two online training\u00a0sessions, I walk four miles, three times a week with a friend. His mantra is, \u201cNot\u00a0doing this is not an option.\u201d If you’re having trouble sticking with something\u00a0that you know would be good for you, create a support system. It helps to have\u00a0a cheering section when you\u2019re trying to keep yourself on track. When I was\u00a0writing a book for Johnny G, a cycling record holder and creator of Spinning,\u00a0he told me that sometimes his wife had to literally shove him out of bed in the\u00a0morning so he could train. Swimmer Michael Phelps and gymnast Simone Biles who\u00a0each won a number of Olympic gold medals, said that they didn\u2019t consider
themselves better than anyone else. They just trained harder and they never gave\u00a0up.<\/p>\n
Doing what\u2019s in front of you with\u00a0no excuses is a rewarding way to go through life. It’s the only way we can keep\u00a0our bodies strong and our minds sharp. My girlfriend\u2019s father is 103 years old\u00a0and he works out every day and feels grateful every morning that he\u2019s still\u00a0here with new mountains to climb and new ways to challenge himself and find\u00a0purpose. We can learn to see challenges as gifts and embrace the parts of us\u00a0that defy the odds and stay the course. But let me be clear here. I\u2019m not finding\u00a0fault with ailing or elderly people who let go when their time is up. I don\u2019t\u00a0see that as losing. I\u2019m not fond of the expression, \u201cHe lost his battle with\u00a0cancer.\u201d That\u2019s not losing or giving up. That’s surrendering to what we can\u2019t\u00a0control and knowing when it\u2019s time to accept the inevitable.<\/p>\n
In my experience, the only things worth\u00a0giving up are revenge, resentments, blame and trying to be perfect. We can\u00a0never be perfect. Life is not a race to the finish line. It\u2019s not about\u00a0punishing someone else for their behavior. It\u2019s not about looking or doing
better than someone else. It\u2019s not about comparisons or seeing how much you can\u00a0accomplish in the shortest period of time.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s about continuing to put one\u00a0foot in front of the other, having compassion for your fellow human beings and\u00a0yourself, and moving forward with no excuses or reasons why you should be doing
something else. Giving up when the going gets rough is letting go of hope, the thing\u00a0that encourages us to hang on to life, no matter how difficult things get or\u00a0how often they change. If we\u2019re committed to living the best life we can, no\u00a0matter what, and helping other people do the same, we’re giving back instead of\u00a0giving up. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The first home I bought was\u00a0arguably the smallest dwelling among the lush estates in Benedict Canyon. I\u00a0needed to move, they were selling the house I was renting, and it was the only place\u00a0I found in a decent neighborhood that I could afford. I called it the Doll\u00a0House. It was two stories, one cylinder stacked on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2380,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2381"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2382,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2381\/revisions\/2382"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}