I no longer see asthma as a blockade in my life but an obstacle.   I have what is considered sports induced asthma.  Which is funny because all I ever want to do is play sports.  Sports induced asthma is when you have difficulties breathing that are triggered by exercise.  I used to interpret that as when I felt discomfort in my lungs while conditioning to slow down.  How would I know any different with two caring parents at home who think every time I wheeze I need to be examined by a specialist? 

I recently realized that without work my asthma was always going to stay the same.  In other words if I sit on the couch all day my asthma is not going to get any better.  My big trigger was I started to consider joining the military, but shortly after I realized there are many restrictions for asthma patients.  Immediately I started working very hard to improve my breathing. 8% of Olympic athletes have asthma.  The way I see it is if you can compete with the best athletes in the world and still have asthma, you can do anything with it.

If you want to accomplish anything you have to get up and work for it. Stop wishing it was done and do it.  In life you make choices. Everybody makes thousands of choices a day but it’s the ones that are hardest to make that will impact you the most.  For me the hardest choices to make are to get started or not.  99.9% of the time it’s easier to say you just don’t feel like starting it, or you just don’t feel like doing it. When you start to repetitively accept the decision to not do it because difficult, you are accepting mediocracy for yourself.

I used to be that person.  The kid that always did half of my homework, the person that always did 2 less pushups then everyone else, and the person that stopped short of my goals.  It’s almost like I was afraid to exceed the expected limits for a person with asthma.  I even used to use asthma as an excuse tactic instead of letting it motivate me.  That’s why every time I go to the gym I focus on being better than I was the day before.  Or concentrating on my weaknesses instead of exercising my strengths. There is always a thousand reasons not to try, but the day you put them aside and start focusing on the reasons to work is the day you will overcome your obstacle.