Lukewarm.
The word just kind of sits there, doesn't it?
Lukewarm. It's not cold but it's definitely not hot either. It's just somewhere in between and not the least bit exciting. When I think of all of the ways that I would hate to be described --
"Lukewarm" is at the top of my list.
Recently, Kanye West shared with Oprah that:
"If life is in color, then I am playing in RED!"
Now that, that is HOT. There is nothing lukewarm about that.
Lukewarm, the temperature, is about 105 degrees, and while HOT is 211, the difference between hot and boiling to the point of making steam is --
just one degree.
In other words, at 211 degrees, water is hot. At 212 degrees, water reaches it's boiling point and begins to make steam.
I had a professor long ago who changed my life, in his own way.
He changed my life because one day he issued me a challenge:
"You are a Nonche-male!"
He went on to explain that in Italian, nonche-male (loosely translated) means "not so bad, not so good"; like mediocre or somewhere in between. Not cold, but not hot and definitely not producing any steam.
And then he asked:
"Are you committed to being mediocre; remaining somewhere in between?"
I walked away from that conversation confronted and haunted by this idea of being in the middle; of living life at 105 degrees when living life at 211 is where things really start to cook.
Years later, I was watching the movie The Karate Kid. The Karate Kid is about a bullied teenage boy, named Daniel, who overcomes his tormentors and becomes a man under the guidance of his genius Karate instructor Mr. Miyage. Mr. Miyage says to Daniel at one point in the movie:
"Man walk on road. Walk left side, safe. Walk right side, safe. Walk down middle, sooner or later, get squished!"
Mr. Miyage was cautioning Daniel, like my professor was teaching me, about the dangers of pursuing something without passion; being involved in something without generating any heat.
