Off the Cuff with Jacqueline Ross

By Jacqueline Ross

Greetings, humans!

To get everyone up to speed from my last month’s column….

The Flow With J-Ro gang is crushing it with the I-4 MX Series and my guy, Linkin Bischoff, is holding down the #1 spot in the GNCC Racing Series in the 65 (10-11) class!  Well done, gentlemen.  Even I have been racing.  Welp, trying to that is. 

The month started off great, but over the last few weeks I’ve been experiencing many ”temporary inconveniences” (injuries) as I like to call them.  Thankfully, nothing major, but it’s been one thing after the other.  It’s like my dad told me, ”Sometimes you’re the hammer and sometimes you’re the nail.”  Lately, I’ve been the nail and it’s brought up a lot of questions that I’ve been asking myself. 

With my status of current events, I’ve been thinking, A LOT.  Nothing new there. Haha.  The words ”good enough” have never really been part of my vocabulary.  So when is enough actually enough?  Where is the fine line between that’s enough and go a little further?  The difference between having one foot in the door and stepping in with both feet.  Set the bridge ablaze or just don’t travel that road anymore.  Where is this invisible line that exists? No one can see, only you can feel.  The feeling of pushing through to your next level or making peace with where you are.  Or maybe it’s making peace with your current state while being eager to push through to your next level? 

You can’t get blood from a stone, but the heart pumps about 1,900 gallons (7,200 litres) of it through the human body everyday.  How much blood, sweat, and tears does one have to keep pouring out in pursuit of a dream? Anatomically speaking, our legs are the strongest and largest muscles in our bodies.  Yet, it’s our heart and spirit that carry us through the darkest of times.  How resilient are your heart and spirit?

As Theodore Roosevelt said,

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.  The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” 

From the arena,

Jacqueline