your reputation

While I was doing laps yesterday a woman swam over to me.

"Are you the one who is going to walk across Spain?" she asked.

I laughed. And concurred. Which led to a wonderful conversation about seizing the moments, dreams, and passions given to us. Saying "yes" to life. Saying "yes" NOW.

After I went back to my laps it occurred to me that I have only been going to the gym for two and a half weeks and already I've developed a reputation.

Not that that should be surprising. Like it or not we are a people who love to talk. (Especially about the new girl.) To tell stories and find out each other's stories. And more often than not we find out those stories from secondary sources in the locker room, over coffee, at the mill or the hairdresser, the bar or church parking lot.

I can't make people stop talking. Or stop listening. But I can try to live my life so that what they say--the reputation I inspire--is a positive one. One I'm happy for them to be whispering about in the locker room and the lap lane and on the treadmill.

Being "the girl who is training to walk across Spain because it's on her bucket list and there is no time like the present to make your dreams a reality" isn't such a bad reputation to have!

EMBRACE YOUR REPUTATION.

Sure, not everyone will like me and not everyone will speak truth. But that is beyond my control. What I can control is how I live.