From age eleven to age sixteen I lived a spartan life without the usual adolescent uncertainty. I wanted to be the best swimmer in the world, and there was nothing else.
But for each of us, isn’t life about determining your own finish line?
I am interested in the unknown, and the only path to the unknown is through breaking barriers, an often painful process.
When you reach for the horizon, as I’ve proven, you may not get there, but what a tremendous build of character and spirit that you lay down. What a foundation you lay down in reaching for those horizons.
Swimming is probably the ultimate of burnout sports.
If you can just immerse yourself in your life, it doesn’t matter what you do everyday. Just do it intensely. Be in it, so that when you go to sleep you’re exhausted every night and you say, ‘Whoa, I just couldn’t have done any more with that day.’
The spirit is larger than the body. The body is pathetic compared to what we have inside us.
The mantra I used was ‘find a way.’
I have an uncompromising relationship with my goals.
The integrity and self-esteem gained from winning the battle against extremity are the richest treasures in my life.
I failed and faltered many times, but I can look back without regret because I was never burdened with the paralysis of fear and inaction.
What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
I’ve been living out loud the Henry David Thoreau saying: “What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.” The quest of the Cuba.
Whatever your Other Shore is, whatever you must do, whatever inspires you, you will find a way to get there.
Hard work and focus and will would shape my future. Nothing was meant to be.
That down feeling, quitting, was far worse than suffering it out to the end, because that decision to quit haunts you and bleeds over into your outlook on everything else, just as not quitting buoys you for all else.
I love that aspect of sports where you can see what kind of work, how much work, an athlete’s been doing by how her body is carved.
Never ever give up. You’re never too old to chase your dreams. And even if something looks like a solitary sport, it’s a team effort. Words to live by!
Close your eyes, close your fists, and say, ‘I couldn’t have done it a fingernail faster.’ If you can say it, and mean it, I guarantee you it will be all right, no matter what happens. No regrets.
I am not defined by transient fame, or by childhood sexual abuse, or by world records. I don’t wake up each morning a woman, a senior citizen, a lesbian, a Democrat, a human rights advocate, an atheist, a pacifist, an animal lover, an environmentalist. I may be all of these things, although above all I’m just a person who cherishes a bold journey. A person who refuses to let this one wild and precious life slip quietly by.