You Are What You Do

It's funny/scary how much kids imitate us - my two-year old son mimics mannerisms of mine that I never even knew existed. I think about this every time I stretch or work out. He'll sprint towards me, lie down and immediately do sit-ups, push-ups or whatever exercise I'm doing. This also extends to speech - he even parrots the sound I make when I sneeze - adding an extra urgency for me to watch my language.

This makes me think of two things. The first is an expression in the army that a colonel once told me and my colleagues: "You are what you do." Regardless of what beliefs you espouse, or philosophy you claim to follow, ultimately your actions define who you are more than anything you say. He might be right. The second thought that comes to mind is a Chinese expression, "Meng's mother moves three times." The story focuses on an ancient Chinese philosopher, Mengzi (a.k.a. Mencius), who lived around 300 B.C. When Mengzi was a child, he used to live next to a graveyard. His mother noticed that he would imitate the rituals of the morticians and graveyard workers and realized that she needed a better environment to raise her son. She moved next to a marketplace, but noticed that he started to imitate the various hawkers and sellers who haggled with customers. Not pleased with this either, she finally moved next to a school. Mengzi began to imitate the reading habits of the students and scholars, which greatly pleased his mother. Future generations attribute Mengzi's scholarly success to his mother's foresight and persistence in guiding her son.

Will my kids similarly be influenced by my own actions and habits? Based on these last two years, it certainly seems so, whether I want to or not. They may not necessarily become esteemed Confucian scholars like Mengzi, but my wife and I will certainly steer them as best we can, however we can. As mentioned above, they'll probably takes their cues less from anything we say and more so from what we do.

In terms of running, I'm slowly making progress towards getting back to pre-injury form. The last few workouts include:

January 21: Three miles on road and track at a leisurely pace

January 25: Three miles on the treadmill (7:35, 7:25, 7:07)

January 27: Went dancing until 1:00 a.m. - that's got to count for something, no?

January 29: Four miles on the treadmill (9:00, 6:58, 9:00, 6:27)

I really don't know if I'll break 20 minutes by race day in April. But no matter what happens, I'll always be glad to have my son by my side.