The following is from my 13-year-old daughter, Cozette:

***

Wake up. Stop the alarm and get up.

The life of a swimmer is early morning practice, afternoon late practice, and constantly thinking about how to loose time.

But can you?

You’re racing yourself, not the person beside you. But you want to win.

Maybe swimmers are never on TV because people fear the deep? Maybe because it’s not important to some, but to us … it is. A passionate swimmer never skips a practice. We just keep working. Swimming is a way of life we can’t just hide. And when we jump into the cold water it’s time to start.

Albert Einstein once said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.” That’s what we do. And if we work hard enough, we will get it. We are racing the clock, not the person beside us. We are dragging the team on our time. And when we get to the big meet we dive into the cold water. Again.

We wake up to every morning and we get better. We swim for a few seconds and we loose time.

Because we are insane.

Because we are swimmers.

 

America Is Not A Company
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Jim Mitchem

Writer. Father to daughters. Husband. Ad man. Raised by wolves. @jmitchem on twitter. First novel, Minor King, out now.

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