February has kicked my ass

By Rich Smith, 02-20-2019

Monday morning, February 18th. It’s 12 degrees. It snowed 7 inches over the weekend. That’s on top of the snow we already had.

Wednesday morning, February 20th. 19 degrees. Snowed another 7 inches overnight. No school. Can’t make it out of the neighborhood.

Look, I get it, I live in Nebraska. Snow is a part of winter. We just learn to live with it. But as I drove in to the office Monday morning, I noticed a guy walking to work. Not just through a parking lot, or across the street. He was walking up a snow-covered sidewalk towards a car dealership that was still probably a quarter mile away.

Now before you say “Rich, why didn’t you offer him a ride”, I’ll explain. It’s a pretty busy stretch of road, with an on-ramp that connects to another busy almost interstate type of road. There was no way I could have stopped. If I could have, I would have. But since I couldn’t, I can only speculate on why he was walking. More importantly, it gave me a chance for some good old-fashioned introspection.

So it’s 6:15 am, 12 degrees, 7-10 inches of snow. This guy has a backpack full of something and is hustling up the snowy sidewalk. I couldn’t tell you where he was coming from, or where he was going. But he was doing it. Didn’t matter the conditions, he was going to work. It made me feel a bit guilty for the warmth of the car, or that I woke up and grumbled about cold and the volume of work this week. It made me think about how I’ve been approaching my days. February has been a busy month, and it’s not going to get any easier. It may be the shortest month of the year, but it’s been jam-packed. It’s easy to complain. It’s easy to look for ways to avoid the work. It’s easy to let it all get me down. But in the end, my attitude will be reflected in the results. I could half-ass the rest of the month, but everyone will see it. And honestly, that isn’t me. I started the year by telling all of you that I’m going to run full speed into 2019. Get busy living or get busy dying, right? So far, February has kicked my ass, and I was feeling myself slowly slipping into a full on winter funk.

I’m sure everyone has felt this way from time to time. I just get a forum to talk about it. But that guy walking to work this morning really put things into perspective for me. He made me realize I need to pick myself up and finish the month strong. Maybe seeing that guy walking to work was exactly what I needed. Maybe it was my wake-up call. Either way, I have a renewed sense of purpose. If I could shake that guy’s hand, I would.