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Patrick Fellows is a 5 time Ironman, TEDx giving, 32 miles swimming, endurance coaching, healthy cooking, entrepreneur and musician.  Born in Dearborn, MI, raised in Mississippi and a Louisianian for 30 years, 

Jinx. You owe me a coke.

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There comes a point when you’re lying awake and you finally just say “Eff it. I’m getting up.”  The last five days that time has been 3:15, 2:16, 1:13, 5:20, and 2:17.  If this is my new wake up, expect me to start shutting it down at 6 pm.  My wife kindly pointed out last night that I was just mocking insomnia a mere 5 days ago and well. Here I am. Awake.  


I’ve long joked that it doesn’t matter if you believe in the jinx because the jinx believes in you. Some sort of “Seriously?” karma stuff going on.  I don’t really believe it that much because that’s loser talk and losers lose, but on this 5th day of not sleeping, I’m beginning to wonder. 


I believe things have a way of working out if we just let them. Yes we can make our own luck and preparation counts, but there’s a lot of random in the world, entropy.  It’s keeping positive when things go sideways that battles the jinx. That and accepting that just because something doesn’t go your way doesn’t mean the world is aligned against you. 


Conversely, an embracing of the jinx and the negative gets you just that. We all have a friend (or 20) who’s “snake bit” or “nothing ever works out for.”  If you believe in the jinx. The jinx believes in you. 


I’ve been going back lately and spending some of the time needed to organize this blog. It’s a lot of categorizing and such. In doing so, I’ve noticed yet again that the better posts say a lot of the same things and was happily surprised to reread some of the anecdotes used in making those points. For awhile I beat my writing up from the standpoint of thinking that I had to tell a new story all the time. The magnitude of that was daunting and left me sometime frustrated as well as hyper critical. 


Maybe one day more of the world will see this. Maybe just the same couple hundred will take the time to get the gentle reminders I keep making. That’s a win on any terms. 


The jinx is combination of the randomness of the world and your framing of the occurrences thereof. Keeping looking for it. And it keeps finding you. 


Me, I’m going to believe that after this next race weekend, that I’m going to get back to sleeping again.  Or at the least, make it to 4. 


#hugsandhi5s

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