Until the recession kicked the city and the business community’s collective hind end, the City of Reno held an annual Corporate Challenge. My company competed every year; the organizers doing their best to recruit participants for every event from Pictionary to  darts to Track and Field to softball to swimming and even tug-of-war. I competed in 2009 and 2010 (the last year the event was held). In 2009 I competed in swimming (backstroke and breaststroke) and managed to pull off a silver medal in each event. In 2010, I bested myself and won a gold medal in breaststroke, a silver in freestyle and shock of all shocks, a silver in the long jump. Go figure. I wasn’t in shape at all, but the company needed women in my age bracket to compete, if for no other reason than to help boost our overall score. So I showed up. I swam. I jumped. I even tossed a shot put and a softball. And I had fun.

These medals hang on my office bulletin board as a daily reminder: Show up. Participate.