Who's Watching You?

With all that is going on in the media re Tiger Woods (I don't even watch tv and I am so over hearing about it, seriously) it made me think of something Shak said to me last year, "People are watching you Bright.  I'm watching you."  The gift and the curse of a leader.  She can tell me that because she lives it, too.  When I'm on the hill and I want to just stop, because it always crosses my mind, I don't.  There's definite pride in there that won't let me quit but there are people who are motivated by what I do, as well.  How can this chick who looks like that not give up.  I mean let's be real, I don't have a runner's build but that's what makes it all the more dope.  I did my first 10k this year and I started running for the first time in life last year.  Like Shak says, you expect the thin chick to beat everyone or outlast everyone but what about someone like her (Shak) who has a similar shape to mine, fit and curvy, and is KILLING 'EM.  And I mean she kills them, beats everybody... dudes... chicks... it doesn't matter.  But she's fast as all get out because she decided to be so.  So, when there are people who are at the top of whatever game and they cheat on their spouse or pull a Kanye why are people like, "Damn, not you man?"  Why do we hold these people at such high regard?  Because they make us believe that we can be the best at something, too.  I don't think that they should be messiah-ed, because we are all human.  But the truth is people lose faith in themselves because you were that embodiment of what the best possible them could be if they tried.  The fact is when you sign up to be a leader, that's how you'll be treated.  I believe in second chances, at the same time you have to own your space.  

When I hear it said that these business men/women, athletes, musicians should just expect that they are role models that kind of bothers me because it sounds a liiiittle bit like sideline critics.  You don't know what it's like to live such and such a life, neither do I...just yet.  What I do know is the pressure I put on myself to succeed.  I now am aware that other people I know who've watched me grow up and move clear across the country by myself are also looking to me to succeed.  I don't have a model for what I'm going after and that makes it all the more nerve wracking but I'll be proof that it can happen, it will happen because when I want to stop you're watching me and I can't give up.

100.

Bright