Just do it
Noyah Shebshaievitz
Imagine the famed Exodus was led by Nike’s marketing team. Picture it, Moses standing in front of the Red Sea, Egyptians closing in, and God tells him “remember, just do it!” Thousands of years later, it would be the scene relegated to the stained glass windows in houses of worship rather than on the front of T-shirts at the gym. It’s safe to say, had it been a biblical verse, Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike, would have a new verse to embroider on pillows and motivate them to step out of their comfort zones. But for me, it is a call to action. God and Nike, have informed my being even more than DNA alone, because beyond the evolutionary genes like “HAR1,” “MYH16,” and “FOXP2” that dictate who we are as humans, the combination of sport and religion “dictates” my life more than DNA ever will. Sport, for me, inspires action and lives in the tangible, while religion instills in me the value of surrendering control to the abstract. While the two are seemingly contradictory, I live my life in the mystical confluence between the two. Whether I am reluctant to get out of bed for a run on a cold winter morning or to make my way to synagogue to lead the youth group, I never give in to the couch of inaction, instead, I get up and just do it. So I got up one slow and sunny morning to teach Michael, an autistic boy, how to swim. Well, how to almost swim; he may never learn to fully swim on his own, but like a calculus limit, he can still get infinitely close, which in its own right is incredible. As he stood at the edge of the pool I told him “jump!” Looking back, my instructions were akin to urging him to take the Kierkagardian “leap of faith” - I practically told him to split the sea, to literally and figuratively
56 ~ Rain
