I have been dealing with some major frustration with international travel and the time things take now-a-days. As I grow older however, I have realized that there is no point in fixating on what is frustrating us and letting go of everything else. Hard work is not glamorous, I tell myself. As long as I work every day to the best of my ability, I am set. So, that is what I have been doing. As usual, I have more than one interesting project on my plate and this week saw about five very late nights (yes, its only Friday today!) and early mornings. I managed to get in some exercise three of those five days and I was psyched about that. The mind is a very powerful place. We do need to stay connectd with our goals and dreams, no matter what the odds and how they shift with our relative stress at work, with relationships etc.

I have also been missing my friend that passed away in June, very deeply. September marked the third month he was gone and I know, like his mom knows, that he is never coming back. To tell you a little story about my friend, he was an artist, loved rock music and bikes (the ones you pedal, not the ones that smoke up the roads), was a very good son, a very good friend and went to Swaziland to work with the Peace Corps. He really believed that his life could make a difference and he did what he thought he could with it. I remember being mad at him for this and that and being a lousy friend in general because I couldnt grapple with his loss. He was diagnosed with Gliblastoma more than a year ago and what a horrible day it was when I heard about it. He is the only friend in my set of friends who has travelled all the way to my humble home in India, to visit my parents, to tramp around on a holiday while being taken aback by so many cultural nuances of our country (which was why I was mad at him) and just being a regular, honest guy.. so, to say that he is a shade in my own heart would be putting it lightly.

I was driving home after the hell week (almost week, I know its only Friday now.. it seemed like Saturday yesterday) and had to pass through Cubbon Park on the way. I was 7pm, and I had slept about 5 hours the night before, badly. There was a kid on the street, you know, the same one you always see and never pay attention to and angrily tell yourself "I am not supporting poverty by paying this kid!" doing tricks. I think he was less than 10 and had a whole bag of tricks, flip turns, a funny cap with a ball attached to a string on that cap demonstrating the principles of some physics lesson Im sure I have excelled at in the past, no shoes and dirt covering every inch of his little body, that was not covered with clothes. I totally cracked. Here we are, the great nation that is "moving up the value chain", whatever the hell that means, having to sit in traffic 95 minutes of our day, one way so, lets forget about exercise and healthy lives entirely (even for us just working class people) and a side of our humanity that will never let us sleep. I have had so many major conflicts in my life about being a triathlete. How do you drive home, with ten of these kids banging on your door in that 95 minute drive, walk into your gym and hit the treadmill for 30 minutes, as if nothing happened?

But, I do have the answer for that today.. after sleeping a whole 12 hours starting 8pm last night :) I think that a great love for endurance sports keeps me scratchproof to some extent. So many disappointments to face in life, so many conflicts and so many problems one seems to be able to do less and less about as we grow older.. When I was younger, I didnt want to be a paper-pusher. Save a few exciting projects that come my way, sometimed I feel, I am exactly that, a paper-pusher. And I do it gladly because somewhere I have a small sense of responsibility for the people who work for me and the people I work for. Besides, if my buddy thought his life could make a difference and went after it like there was literally no tommorow, I wont settle for less.

I dont think that my being a triathlete will solve the world's problems... but it solves my problems and helps me sleep at night, spend less time being a consumer at some air-conditioned mall and eating more than I need to. I am OK with that demand on my self.

Its a brand new day!