Hello from my front seat of Bruce, The Beetle,
I am waiting for my friends and colleagues at our appointed place for dinner. My brain is whirling for a variety of reasons, and that is when I find it most necessary to write. It is a way to clear my thoughts, to structure the chaos, and a way by which I can move forward most efficiently. This afternoon I was blessed with the opportunity to speak with my late pastor’s son. It was the first time we spoke in more than a year. We have played phone tag on more than one occasion. Over the years we have managed to stay connected and it seems too often our actual conversing has occurred at those moments we are confronted with our mortality, with the reality of life’s changes. Changes that are mortally eternal, which are profound and emotional.
David spoke about the last moments with his father, and how he had never witnessed a death before. Certainly when that experience is your parent, it is overwhelming. I read him the blog written for his father and during our conversation there were tears from both sides. Loving someone, truly loving them beyond something comprehensible, with a wholeness or totality that eludes our normal thoughts or imagination is what I heard in David’s voice and through his tears. It is not a perfect love, but it is an unparalleled love. It is a life-giving love that we all hope to achieve. And it was a beautiful love to witness even through a phone. While it was not an unexpected love to hear about, seldom does such a beautiful expression occur. I was blessed in that exchange with my friend, one who has covered my entire adult life. In spite of the moment for him two weeks ago, we also note for us life continues and there is the reality of moving on. However, there is a sort of gut-check reality that one’s own generation has become the elder. In spite of the reality that created this role, there is something privileged in becoming that, the elder. And so the reality is we keep pushin’ . . . Keep pushin’ on.
As I write this, now on Thursday morning, another week of classes is completed today for the majority of my classes. While the semester has been beyond busy, it has also been another learning experience for me. There is always something to ponder, to imagine, and yes, to be amazed from in the daily push from the first day to the semester’s final posting. For over two and a half years, when we unexpectedly received a second week of Spring break, students, faculty, and administrators at the university (and individuals around the world) have labored to manage the virus that has enveloped our globe. To say we have struggled seems to be kind at best, and regardless one’s stance on social distancing, masking, or being vaccinated, we have pushed through. Recently I received the latest of the boosters, and yes, I have been injected (for those old enough to understand, I am hearing strains of Alice’s Restaurant) for flu and pneumonia. Indeed, selected, inspected . . . Sometimes it is easy to become overwhelmed and wonder if it all matters, but I wish such moments to be bit fleeting ones – ones that remind me of my humanness, but also ones that push me to be better, imagine better, strive for better. To keep pushin’ has become a mantra that is characteristic of my daily practice. I not always as successful as I wish, but seldom do I feel I am being regressive. I think retreat or failure to move ahead is a mindset more than an actual motion.
It is easy to feel disappointed in our current world’s atmosphere; I am sure the last 50 days in the UK are somewhat unprecedented; I am sure the situation for both the Russians and Ukrainians is very untenable, but nevertheless, it continues; In spite of our own midterm elections being only a week away, I think I am both accurate and realistic (and unfortunately so) that the beat of the 2024 drum will be echoing in my ears some the following day. It is with certainly that I say I hope I am in another country before that next November election. I do wonder what the founders of the country, those on either side of that political coin would say about where we currently are? While I believe I am a patriotic American, and I actually like exploring politics, I am tired of it all. It is not the intention of the political process, it is what we have managed to do with it. Hence, my question about our founders. I am sure there was some significant rancor in the founding conversations. It is important to remember many of the founders were in their 20s, and in spite of the differences between the 18th and the 21st century, 20-something males are exactly that.
As school this week, in other places, the reality of our daily grind seems to be more profound then is often the case. Why is that? Is it a perception or a reality? Perception is reality until proven otherwise, but I am much more a person who wanted to deal with the reality of something. I am reminded of some others questioning if everything must be logical to me? My answer was a pretty straightforward yes. It is how I teach. It is how I manage; and yes; it is my version of the title, the adage, the reality of this blog . . . life is process. Life is the reality of the push and being pushed. It is something that allows for possibility and hope. There will always be the reality that we will be pushed harder than we ourselves can push. There is the reality that we can be knocked down. Th question is how successfully can we get back up? Getting up is never simple, but it is always possible. Often it is a dirty process. There are times when others might prefer we remain flat on our faces. There are three times in my life when I was ostensibly told, you might as well stay down. After a serious argument with a band director, who found out I had enlisted in the Marines, told me I would never survive boot camp. That was motivating. There was a college prescient who told me I would never have a PhD. And yet I do. And there was a bishop willing to take away something precious, and content to leave me wounded on the road like the person in the parable of the Good Samaritan. There were those who found me and tended my wounds. Through it all I was able to keep pushin’
As I finally finish this blog, it is now the first of November. It is the time to remember the Saints in our lives. It is easy to believe Saints are someone extraordinary, and extraordinary they are, but they are simultaneously human, ordinary individuals. Perhaps it is not by accident that yesterday was also the day Luther hung his 95 theses on a castle door 500 years ago. Luther’s dialectic of simul justis et peccator could be understood as keep pushin’ on. The tools to make a difference, the ability to be a light to another is within each of us. It was my grandmother who succeeded in a battle with alcoholism; it was my father who created a family of three children he did not create; it was a small diminutive woman, an only child, who came to another country and changed people’s lives in a classroom; they are three saints in my life. They were not perfect, but they loved me. None of them would consider themselves saints, but to me they were. They simply demonstrated the ability to keep pushin’ and by their actions and their love, I am but an ember of their incredible fire.
Below is the song that inspired this blog, I am reminded of more than once I saw this band in concert; am there is more than one album I probably played the grooves off from the number of times I would listen to them.
Dr. Martin
thewritingprofessor55 
Dear Dr. Martin,
I read your stories about times when others liked to see you flat on your face. I experienced this more than once myself, so I can relate.
For example, in high school, I was told by my biology teacher that the university I had chosen to attend was too hard and that I would never make it. She claimed that others, more intelligent than me, could not keep up and had to leave. It puzzled me, at the time, why this teacher needed to tell me her feelings. I did not ask her to give me her opinion, but she decided to share it anyway. Long story short, I finished my master’s degree in Organic chemistry and was begged to stay for a Ph.D.
Another time, when I was a widow with five small children, I was told that I could not make the airplane trip overseas to see my family on my own. How can I make it with so many children? I indeed needed a helper, they said. Those trips were not easy, but they were necessary for me to accomplish, for my sanity, and to move forward with my life. I found a way and made three trips overseas, just my children and me. All trips were within eighteen months of my fifth baby’s birth.
My latest example is about changing my engineering career into a physician`s career. I had plenty of people telling me that I was crazy, it was too much for me, and how about my poor children? One must pause and think about why people say such things. I believe that some people get tired just thinking about this idea. They do not want to be bothered, and that is OK; I am not pushing my idea on anyone. Some, however, do not like me to succeed because if I do, it reflects poorly on them. She has five children and went back to school to be a doctor. If she can do it, why can`t I do it? Or even better, should I be doing it too?
The best revenge is living a good life. If we hold grudges against others and are constantly mad, it only hurts us in the end. How can we move forward and keep pushing if we keep worrying about others? We need to concentrate on ourselves first and forgive those who did us wrong. Only when we do that, do we become truly free to pursue our life`s goals.
We have a lot in common, Dr. Martin. We are both survivors, in our own ways, and we refuse to give up even when all odds are stacked against us. Our inner drive to always move forward is extremely high, it propelled us to places others dream about and I am certainly grateful for that.
Helena
Dear Dr. Martin,
As this semester comes to an end, I find myself in the same position that I am in every single semester. I ask myself, how can the semester be over already? How did it go so fast? The problem is within the school week, all I do is look forward to the next week because it is one week closer to the end. I think about all the hard work I have done and how tired I am. One thing I never think about and appreciate is how much I’ve grown. This post made me grow an appreciation for all of my hard work. I am not merely “surviving”, but instead I am thriving based on the dedication I put into my learning experience. Similarly, I often equate a low grade with a failure of my own self. Rather than seeing this as a failure, I hope to realize that it is simply me getting knocked down. It does not mean that I will stay down forever, but instead that I may have to work a little bit harder to get back up.
What encourages me the most to get back up are the saints in my life. When I work hard, I often do so to impress other people rather than myself. I do it for my Nana, who didn’t live long enough to see my high school graduation, but I know is still my biggest supporter. To mirror what you said, I can understand that they as well were not perfect which inspires me to get back up when I fall.
Jayme Baker
Dr. Martin,
It was a crisp mid-summer morning when I pulled into the parking lot of my local high school to attend the first day of classes for the 00-01 school year. I sat in my car, over run with emotions, holding back tears, and praying that my legs would carry me through those front doors. After what felt like hours, I gathered the courage to start my senior year. As I entered the building everyone stopped what they were doing, all eyes pointed directly on me, and the whispering began. There was no point in running away, nothing was going to change the outcome. During the morning announcements I was called down to the guidance office. It was in that little room that I was told by my guidance counselor that I should drop out of school. I was eight months pregnant and according to said counselor I was never going to graduate, go to college, or in fact amount to anything. I refused to quit and a few months later I walked with my classmates and received my diploma. I might have taken my good old time getting to where I am today, but I learned one hell of a lesson that I am passing on to my children. No matter what happens in life don’t ever stop chasing your dreams!
Amy,
This is an incredible story, and I am honored to work with you. Our humanity sometimes gets in the way of our progress, and pardon my language, but people are f-ing stupid. You need to be proud of your perseverance. I wish you success in this class and beyond.
Dr. Martin,
Going through life there is undoubtedly going to have its ups and its downs. What I have learned from those ups and downs is to take everything you can from those experiences. What I have observed from not only other people by from myself, is that when it comes to little things, people and myself let the minor inconveniences ruin a mood, day, or lesson. Although on the other hand, ignore the little good things that happened and think that the day was a waste. The biggest thing I have learned from my life experiences is to take them all with an opened mind, and when there doesn’t seem to be a bright side, search for one until it is found. Sometimes bad things happen, but at the end of the day, life goes on. The sun will rise and the sun will set, whether you are ready for it to or not. So as you said, just keep pushing.
Dr. Martin,
Reading this post made me remember that everyone in their life will go through challenges and face some type of adversity. Everyone on the planet as the ability to overcome these obstacles but for some reason we as humans tend to have a very pessimistic outlook on our situation. Throughout my short life I’ve noticed that most people need someone to help or even communicate to them that they can get through a tough situation. That realization made me ponder all the times I’ve had friends or family going through some type of challenge and needed help. Did I do enough to help this person? Could I have done more? Did I give them the right advice? These are all questions that I ask myself looking back. However, I do not have time to dwell on these questions. I helped out when I could to the best of my ability at the time. All I can do now is learn from those experiences and be a better person than I was yesterday. The only way I can do that is if I keep pushing forward.
Dr. Martin,
I must confess that “keep pushin'” is definitely a mantra I have adopted in recent years. It started to become something I told myself last basketball season as I didn’t see much of the court until I got my chance with just 7 games left in the season. That was a tough time for me because basketball has been something I’ve put countless hours into in my life thus far. Beyond basketball, I absolutely relied on that saying during junior OCS for the Marines. The pressure and demands are never-ending as you probably know all too well yourself.
I realize that life is just not easy. You have to always push. From the lyrics of the song “Slippin”: To live is to suffer…to survive is to find meaning in the suffering. I try to keep things in relative perspective and not get too high, or too low. With that, I will keep pushin’.
Reading this blog sent me through many trains of thought. The “Keep Pushin” mantra sounds so simple, and can be applied to everyone, and yet at the same time can be used as specific motivation per-person. The way the mantra applies to me most is my battle with epilepsy I’ve had since I was 14. While there are worse “types” of seizure disorders and different forms epilepsy can take, there is no form that doesn’t have a massive impact on the lives of people with it. For me, the longest and most persistent issue have been a secondary type of seizure I get called a petit mal (or absence) seizure that prevents me from driving. Like, ever, if I don’t get them to somehow stop. After years of testing, bloodwork, different seizure medications (I almost had to do the ketogenic or Atkins diet for petit mal seizures), hospital visits and a couple big grand mal seizures, I still can’t get my permit. I’m a pessimistic person, so I always saw trying all these new things to reduce petit mal seizures as a wild goose chase after 6 years with no results. However, we never stopped trying. 2 weeks ago (as of this writing) I went in for what’s known as an electroencephalogram (EEG) to tear jerking results. All those years of testing without being optimistic about ever getting a good result, I’m only one more EEG from driving.
My point being that life has struggles for us that feel like a tunnel without another side to it. I felt no matter what I did, I’d never see the end of EEGs and brain scans. But I kept going until I forced an opening on the other side by getting back up after every “failed” brain reading and tried something else, something new that might work.
Jakob,
A friend of mine suffered from the same type of seizures, and it took him what felt like forever to get his license. I believe, as you mentioned, we all suffer in some sort of way, some people more than others. However, what makes cases like yours interesting to me is how severe the ramifications can be on someone’s life. What I mean is not being able to drive puts an individual in a tricky situation. I hope that more people can find strength and determination as you did. I’m glad to hear that you’re almost at the finish line of this lengthy race, keep pushin.
Dr. Martin,
When I am overwhelmed with thoughts, I also write them down. It gives me a sense of organization and calmness. This happens a lot throughout the semester. I get too overwhelmed with everything I have to accomplish, I pull out my planner and write down a list of everything that I need to complete. Something as simple as this takes away a lot of my stress.
The past couple years has also taught me to keep pushing. The daily practice makes me better at it. This is a mindset. To be able to keep pushing and move forward is a mindset that you have to be strict about. You need to want this and be able to work for it.
It is very interesting to be reading this blog post about what was going on that day. It is interesting because I know what has happened with the midterm elections, and what is still going on with Ukraine. I agreed that I am, as well, tired of it all. I would love to sit down with our founders and talk about how different the country is today.
This life is full of the rotation of being pushed down and having to get back up. I hope I never get too tired to get back up.
Dr. Martin,
As I read your blog I could not help but to reflect on my own personal experiences of having to “keep pushin’.” Most of my life has lived up to that motto as I am someone who has always had obstacles to overcome. With these obstacles coming at a young age, I had learned that everyone gets challenged. The reaction to an action is what determines who you are. Some people get content with mediocrity and that’s why they dont ‘keep pushin’.”
In my first semester at Bloomsburg University I had almost dropped out. I had been messing with drugs, gambling, and a bad crowd overall. Bad decisions for myself eventually had me on academic and school probation at the same time. I had felt so much failure and despair and even hated myself for weeks. Next semester comes and I used that experience from my last semester and turned the negative thoughts into positive action — I made the Dean’s List.
My entire experience at school had been me against the odds with external things that happened and here I am — 5 months from graduation! I could have given up the first class I had failed; I could have given up and not switched my major 3 times; I could have given up when going through a domestic court situations. The lack of forfeiting has pushed me way further than I had every imagined.
Now I understand the importance of ‘keep pushin’ is to motivate to reach one goal. A real goal that would leave the individual uncomfortable if never accomplished. To still search for what is believed to be the happiness. It is up to an individual to decide what is their happiness but with enough determination whether it results to a positive or negative outcome, people will achieve it.
Dr. Martin,
As I read your blog I could not help but to reflect on my own personal experiences of having to “keep pushin’.” Most of my life has lived up to that motto as I am someone who has always had obstacles to overcome. With these obstacles coming at a young age, I had learned that everyone gets challenged. The reaction to an action is what determines who you are. Some people get content with mediocrity and that’s why they dont ‘keep pushin’.”
In my first semester at Bloomsburg University I had almost dropped out. I had been messing with drugs, gambling, and a bad crowd overall. Bad decisions for myself eventually had me on academic and school probation at the same time. I had felt so much failure and despair and even hated myself for weeks. Next semester comes and I used that experience from my last semester and turned the negative thoughts into positive action — I made the Dean’s List.
My entire experience at school had been me against the odds with external things that happened and here I am — 5 months from graduation! I could have given up the first class I had failed; I could have given up and not switched my major 3 times; I could have given up when going through a domestic court situations. The lack of forfeiting has pushed me way further than I had every imagined.
Now I understand the importance of ‘keep pushin’ is to motivate to reach one goal. A real goal that would leave the individual uncomfortable if never accomplished. To still search for what is believed to be the happiness. It is up to an individual to decide what is their happiness but with enough determination whether it results to a positive or negative outcome, people will achieve it.
Dr. Martin
While reading this blog post, I couldn’t help but realize that everyone goes through times of deprivation. The saying “keep pushing” is a worthwhile because it gives a hope. I reflected on myself greatly while reading this, for there was periods in my life where I had told myself “keep pushing.” I had realized that in order to keep pushing, you must visualize what comes at the end of the push, and only then can you push your hardest. I have visions of my future, and what I want to be and do after I graduate. However, there are obstacles in the way. Some easy, but some resistant, and the only way to break through them is to keep pushing, but by visualizing your future and success, it makes it 10x easier.
I thank you for reminding me what I am doing. It feels like a nice reset, like a rest stop, to take a look at what I have accomplished as well as look onward to the future. I equate my experiences to climbing a mountain. There are going to be some really steep parts, as well as parts that are easier to climb. But knowing what you are doing it all for is all the more important. I strive to be the best that I can be at everything I do. That was instilled upon me over the course of my younger years. Sometimes you just need a reminder, and while reading this blog post it certainly did just that.
Thanks,