Every Second Counts!

Mostly, I find it very difficult to strike a balance between my work and my interests...If you are in an IT field with 3 to 4 years experience under your belt, then by this time you must have realized that it isn't only the work which needs to be mastered but most importantly the effective utilisation of time aka "Time Management" which you gotta master to lead a smooth and happy life...Here in IT Field the mantra is simple...Your Life will be smooth and happy if your working time is constant and you keep work as variable :-) and becomes miserable if otherwise...:-( Well in my case, its a mix of both...I keep swaying between the two like a pendulum getting stuck ocassionally with the latter :-)

These days I've got glued to Lance Armstrong's "Every Second Counts!" book...Its been there for a while in my home and I have never given a thought of reading it all these days...Perhaps I must have been hyper busy or hyper lousy to sit and read any sort of book...Whatever it is, its been calm for a while in the work front and I thought that this is the time for reading this book as I might not get any better time than this (hmm! IT work professional's fate :-(...

For ppl, who dont know about Lance (Texas,US cyclist), he is the Tour de France (annual cycling event) winner for seven consecutive years (1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005), a record which is yet to be broken...The record is unique because he is a Cancer patient and all his wins weren't just a victory against the fellow cyclists in the Tour de France rather it was a victory against the gruelling cancer...

First at glance, I thought the book would be some Time management gyaan kinda book (going by the title) wherein Lance must be giving some high funda stuff about Time Management...Reading the first chapter I realized that my notion was completely wrong as it was his biography and a lucid narration of his cycling race wins and his struggles to achieve them...By similarity, one can say this book as his blog with all the 7 chapters sectioned into numerous articles giving details about his life, his struggles, his determination to win the Tour de France 7 times although being a cancer patient and surviving through Chemotherapy numerous times...He also mentions about his willingness to meet other cancer patients and boosting their morale by taking his life as example and motivation...

Ok, he could have named it anything else but why Every Second counts??? I started reading the book with this curiosity in my mind...Well I found the answer to the question when I was almost done with the book...I quote it from the book:

"The Tour is essentially a math problem, a 2000 mile race over three weeks that's sometimes won by a margin of a minute or less. How do you propel yourself through space on a bicycle, sometimes steeply uphill, at a speed sustainable for three weeks? "Every second counts" You had to be willing to examine any small part of your body or the bike to find that extra time, I told Floyd; to look for fractions of seconds in something as small as the sleeves of your jersey...A tiny change in the weight or construction of the bike could save 10 to 15 seconds over the course of a 24-mile time trial..."

For those of you who are scared (like me :-))of seeing or bored of reading huge volume of books here is a good choice...This book is a small book with just 265 pages and thats also one of the reasons for me to read it without getting bored off :-D

Some random excerpts from book that I found interesting and thought provoking (underlined ones) are listed below:

I've often said cancer was the best thing that ever happened to me. But everybody wants to know what I mean by that: how could a life-threatening disease be a good thing? I say it because my illness was my antidote: it cured me of laziness...

I had a decision to make. To me, it wasn't a hard one: if I could ride, I was going. Crashes were unavoidable in cycling and so was bad luck, and if you worried about falling off the bike, you'd never get on...

When you win, you don't examine it very much, except to congratulate yourself...But winning only measures how hard you've worked and how physically talented you are; it doesn't particularly define you beyond those characteristics. Losing on the other hand, really does say something about who you are. Among the things it measures are: do you blame others or do you own the loss? Do you analyse your failure or just complain about bad luck?...

My performances were the result of hard work; of the fact that I had trained and been on the bike when no one else was riding, in the off-season and in all weather. I had ridden in Alps in the snow. "And I didn't see any other riders there" I said...

"But to win, you've got to focus and quit worrying about anything else. Your family, debt, money, stress, you have to forget all of it. You've got to focus on this one thing." Floyd said that was easier said than done...

There was no mystery and no miracle drug that helped me win the Tour de France in 1999, I explained to Floyd. It was a matter of recognizing the moment. It was a matter of better training and technique and my experience with cancer and subsequent willingess to make sacrifices.These were the explanations. If you want to do something great, you need a strong will and attention to detail...

Hope reading the above excerpts you would be tempted to read this book since its always motivating to read an achiever's biography more special if he is an achiever who has bent his back against all odds and struggles, ain't it??? ;-)

- Suresh Gangadharan