I was in New York last August for a dinner meeting. It was important, so I got there early -- which, for those of you who don't know me, is a big deal. I'm a five-minutes-late person. It's not a good habit, and I know it implies that my time is more valuable than others', so I'm not making excuses. Let's just say I never leave margin for error or traffic or having to stop for gas. Maybe someday, when I'm all grown up, I'll get it right.

On that warm summer evening I showed up a full fifteen minutes ahead of schedule. I stepped inside, thinking that maybe my group would be at the bar. The room was noisy and small. It felt like everyone was turning to look at the new arrival. But my party wasn't there. I was in no mood to nurse a drink -- in fact, I was jittery because it was a money meeting, and perhaps more prone to knocking one back when moderation was clearly the watchword. So I headed back out into the streets. The restaurant was down by NYU and there was a manic energy to the air. Lots of people out walking or just hanging out. I walked around the block once to bleed off my nerves. Then a second time. And then, still having a couple minutes before the witching hour, I made a third lap. 

This time around I stopped before a record store -- a real record store, with vinyl for sale, concert posters on the walls, and some kid with straight bangs and torn jeans working the counter. There was a t-shirt for sale in the window. At first I took it for that iconic "Hope" image of Obama. But instead of Obama, the face on the shirt was Jeff Bridges' Dude from The Big Liebowski. And instead of "Hope" the message read "Abide." 

Because everyone knows that The Dude abides. 

An image filled my head of otherworldly calm, and the zen koans of The Dude. Suddenly I wasn't so nervous. The seeds of nirvana had been sown. 

I was thinking of that this morning. I'm as nervous as... I'm trying to think of a good comparison, something folksy about a cat with ten tails, though that doesn't make sense. Let's just say that I randomly bounce on my toes from the bundled energy, and my stomach has that tingle of anticipation. Saturday is race day, the payoff for six months of hard work, planning, and commitment. I wish it were now. I wish I didn't have to wait. Let's just line them up and fire the gun. 

It's good to be nervous in November. That means the postseason is ongoing, and that planning for next year is still a month away because this year is still very much alive. As a racer, I used to get nervous all the time. Those were real nerves compared with these -- panic, dread, anticipation, nausea, and on -- but I still feel charged like the Light Brigade  right now (still searching for that comparison, by the way. That, obviously, was off the mark). The training is now money in the bank. This is no time for worry or fear, because that would the opposite of hope, which is the opposite of faith -- and I have oh so much faith. "Our light and momentary troubles," it says in Corinthians, "are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all." Which is a nice way of saying not to be nervous, but in a cosmic sense. Or, as I mentioned to Callie this morning, a billion people in China could care less about what happens at Mt. SAC on Saturday morning.

Which brings me back to hope. Part of nervousness is merely the hope that something important to me or to you, something that we care about enough to fret the outcome, will turn out for the best. And not just a little bit for the best. But in a superlative fashion that touches the outer fringes of a dream coming true.

The other part of nerves is dread that this superlative will not be realized. That, in fact, some disappointing and opposite outcome will occur; something that bruises the heart, if only just for an hour or a minute. 

It's too often said that the journey matters more than the destination. And that's true. But the great electric nerves that keep you up nights and make you as jittery as ten Red Bulls and a kettle of coffee (better?) is the crazy dream that the journey and the destination are equally wondrous -- that there is, in fact, a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

I love those nerves. I hate those nerves.

To abide is to set those nerves aside. 

To abide is to accept that the outcome is beyond my control. 

To abide is to be in the moment and enjoy this ride. 

I need to abide. 

Keep Pushing... Always