A made bed
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Cut flowers in my house
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A good manicure
Real conversations
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Mad, mad love for all y’all.
Monthly Archives: May 2012
Not first, not fast: A case for racing just to finish
By The Tennessean
My friend Andrew and I rode 62 miles Saturday in Nashville’s big annual group ride for cyclists, the Tour de Nash. We started in a parking lot at Vanderbilt, cycled north through Metro Center, east through Inglewood and Shelby Bottoms, took the Greenway all the way to the Percy Priest dam and back, then back across the Korean Vets bridge from East Nashville, north again to the Bicentennial Plaza to Charlotte, to Sylvan Park, to Belle Meade, up through Percy Warner, and back to Vanderbilt with many meandering, pretty excursions along the way.
That is a long ride.
Hilly.
Trafficked.
Scary at the end when a thunderstorm caught us on the last several miles.
Many friends cheered us on; others called us crazy. Why do we do things like this?
How to argue
We are debating over whether to do it this way or that one. My way or his.
You’ve been there. Everyone has.
You see it your way, and your way makes the most sense for the world as you see it.
His way makes the most sense for his world, the world as he sees it.
If you budge, are you compromising something that’s ok to compromise, or are you compromising something that’s not ok to compromise?
He’s asking himself the same question.
Maybe there is another way to look at all this.
What are you trying to accomplish with your way? What is he trying to accomplish with his?
Can you do things his way and still achieve your underlying goals through other means? Can he consider things in a likewise fashion?
What about an altogether third way neither of you have considered?
If I know nothing else, I know the world has more options than arguments.
Related, perhaps: How to love
