Marcus Lopes's Blog, page 13

Go Slow to Go Fast

Last week, I restarted my training for the Toronto Waterfront Marathon, which takes place in October. At 3:30 in the morning, the streets are practically empty. And it’s what I love best about early morning running: calm and quiet. Running again, I wasn’t focused on my pace or distance but on gratitude—to be able to run again. But after a two-week hiatus, I had to resist the urge to train as if nothing had happened. And that meant accepting that sometimes it’s better to go slow to go fast.

Pani...

Perfectionism: It’s Not a Prize

Shortly after my fiftieth birthday, I finally sat down to finish reading a book I’d started a few weeks before. The book? Brené Brown’s Imperfect. In the aftermath of my trip to the ER two weeks ago, Brown’s book hit a nerve. Actually, it dug out the demons and gremlins I’ve been battling most of my adult life: self-doubt, perfectionism, and worthlessness. And just to twist the knife a little deeper, it had me thinking about—obsessively, and not in a good way—if I, and by extension my life, mat...

The Wanderer

Generally speaking, we tend to group writers into two camps: plotters and pansters. Plotters write an outline of their entire book before they sit down to write, hence the nickname. Pansters, as you can imagine, fly by the seat of their pants. They have an idea and they sit down and write—no idea where the writing will go, but they let the words ‘lead’ them. I’m a panster. I like taking a flicker of an idea and developing it as I type. But lately, I’ve become another type of writer: a wanderer....

When Life Throws a Curveball

It happened overnight. That subtle shift from forty-nine to being half a century old. I didn’t make a big deal out of turning fifty. A few of us celebrated the occasion at Antler, a restaurant I’d been wanting to try for a while—and we weren’t disappointed. I had planned to kayak the morning of my birthday, but strong winds forced to me reschedule. The next day, though, I was out on the water and exploring the Humber River—all the while trying to dodge the curveball life was throwing at me.

Run...

50 Years of Learning

With my fiftieth birthday looming (it’s tomorrow), I’ve been quietly reflecting on my life’s journey so far. Since I’ve always believed that age is a state of mind, I’ve never had—and am not having now—one of those ‘crisis moments’ that some people have when they hit certain milestone ages. But in my fifty years on this planet, I like to think that I’ve gathered a little wisdom. And today, I’d like to share a few of the lessons (in no particular order as I believe they’re equally important) tha...

Don’t Be So Hard on Yourself

Are you a time-waster? I am. Sometimes. As a writer who’s always had a day job, I have always tried to be intentional about making time to create. And I like to think that, for the most part, I have done that. I write consistently during the early morning hours. When necessary, I take vacation days to finish editing a novel, review galleys, or make sure everything is set for a book’s release. When I consider every minute outside of work to be precious, I try not to waste them. But I’m human. An...

When Providence Moves

When I walked out of the office on 28 June 2023, I had no idea what I was going to do in the days that followed. Rest? Absolutely. Write? Of course. Run? You betcha. Immediately look for another job? Meh. I recognized that I needed time to ‘detox’ and to get my bearings. The thing is, we never know when providence will move.

Listen to Your Body

Leaving my job just ahead of the Canada Day long weekend, I had a bit of a plan formulated in my head: take a few days, maybe a week, to rest and then ‘...

How Running Changed My Life

When I stepped into those jeans—a size 38 waist—I was horrified that they fit. The other times my then partner tried to hand them down to me they were too big. Now I was shocked into action. I had to do something, but there was just one itsy-bitsy problem. Too self-conscious about my own body, the odds of me joining a gym were a million to one. I never had a six-pack or anything close to it. I did everything to avoid changing in public locker rooms. Take my shirt off? Pfft. But I had to lose we...

Reality Check

Time for a reality check.

When I was a kid, I really had know idea what I wanted to be when I grew up. At six, I started piano lessons and thought briefly about a music career. But back then I never had the discipline required to become a professional musician. Besides (and if you’ve been following me for a while you’ve heard this before), my mother was against the idea of her son going into an industry filled with “alcoholics and drug addicts” (her words, not mine). And because my parents neve...

Know When to Walk Away

You don’t have to be a country music fan to know some of the lyrics to one of Kenny Rogers’s hit songs, “The Gambler.” And for a while, the chorus to that song has played on repeat in my head: “You got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, know when to run.” And walking away isn’t always easy. It can be downright freakin’ hard. But if you can walk away, it can change your life.

A New Path

It was summer 2021. As we emerged from the COVD-19 pandemic, and employe...