You will never be anything better than average if you don’t challenge yourself.

Wow, that almost sounds like I quoted someone, but believe it or not, this man writing this, who’s only other fluent language is swearing, came up with that on the spot.

It’s not profound by any stretch. It’s simply fact.

You can be adequate, you can even be good, but to truly know the boundaries of how good you can be, you have to really push yourself and become better than you are.

After all, you never know until you try.

Eat your heart out Tony Robbins.

Despite the start, this will not be one of those columns where it’s all sorts of optimism with words of encouragement that inspire you to, “go get ‘em slugger.”

More to the point, this column stems from the fact that I recently challenged myself to see how good I really am. Granted, it wasn’t on purpose, but that’s beside the point. And, as it turns out I’m … average.

Okay, good column, I’ll see you next week.

So here’s how it broke down — in Blooming Prairie.

Sportswriter Rocky Hulne and myself drove up to Blooming Prairie one day last week to do a story on how the girls basketball team spends its summers delivering for Meals on Wheels. Meals on Wheels is a great program and the fact that these girls take the time out of the summer to help is worthy of a quality story and photos.

For me it was a chance to get out of the office and really spend time taking photos. I had all sorts of ideas on how I was going to approach this, which were quite a bit different than how it was actually approached.

We met head coach John Bruns and players Maggie Bruns, Ashlei Alwes and Jillian Leghan at the Blooming Prairie Senior Center where it turned out to be a bit of surprise that we were coming — for the girls anyway. Still, they handled it like champs and besides, we are professionals.

Of course at that point, they didn’t know that Rocky was the only representative of professionalism on this day.

I, instead, was rolling over in my mind that I was going to shoot this entire thing with my cellphone.

“Cellphone?” you might be asking. Yes, cellphone because this “professional” photographer forgot his memory card in the office. I could blame it on rushing earlier in the day or rushing the entire month of July, but the simple fact is, I forgot a pretty necessary part of professional journalism.

Sadly, it’s not like this hasn’t happened before.

Turns out, Blooming Prairie and I have a unique relationship in that regard. Not once have I forgotten a card when going to any other town, yet when going to Blooming I’ve forgotten a battery several times and a memory card at least one other time.

And really, that wasn’t all that long ago. During the winter sports season, I blitzed up to BP for a girls basketball game just as a winter weather system was rolling through the area.

What’s more, I didn’t really need to go up there, but we had the opportunity to add more content to the sports page when they decided to move the game up to 5 p.m. to beat the system.

I finished in the office and then broke for BP as the first of the snowflakes began to fall and arrived as the intensity was beginning to pick up. I was in a great mood as I walked in, greeting the ticket taker with a smile and saying ‘hello’ to activities director Ali Mach.

I know! It’s not even like me.

I walked into the gym, looked at my camera to format the card … annnnnnnnddddd, no card.

Now there is a progression of thought when one begins to have the dawning realization that something is about to go wrong. There was a disbelief, as if there is no way the card wasn’t there, and so you keep opening and closing the little door that hides the card as if you just missed something.

There was the growing ire as I looked at the readout on the camera and began to suspect (or fear) it’s lying to you.

Then there is the extra thought, as you begin rolling through the events that brought you to this point and realize where the object is. And it’s not in your camera.

Then comes the idea of  could I make a break back for Austin and get back again and still get something? As it turns out, I couldn’t because I had another game in town that was going to start at the regular time. It was going to be too much of a pinch.

I feverishly started examining the camera to see if it had internal memory so I could try to get at least something, only to realize it didn’t have that or I was too flustered to find it.

Either way, the only redeeming thing to come out of it was, to anybody who didn’t know better, I looked really intently on being a photographer with a serious expression and feverishly thumbing through dials and controls.

The same might have been true in last week’s instance, but considering this had happened before, there was no point in faking it, so I calmly explained to coach Bruns and the girls that I would be following them with … a cell phone.

Bruns grinned and the girls looked at me with grins as well, if not a bit of skepticism that I could pull it off. I couldn’t tell if their eyes were lying or not. Devious teenagers.

And so it was. For the next 15 minutes I followed the girls to two places, cellphone out, taking as many pictures as humanly possible while trying to keep them in focus. I can only imagine how this looked to the people of Blooming Prairie, who might have been watching, and I can only imagine just how far this story has circulated by now.

I suppose it’s a bit arrogant of me to assume the trio immediately started telling friends and families about the lunatic photographer trying to pull off professionalism with a cell phone, but really if I were a teen, you bet I would be spreading this around.

It’s at this point you might be asking yourself, “How did he get a job?” Followed by the equally pressing question of, “Did you get anything?”

I will say this: I got by. I won’t win any awards or be mentioned in college courses, but we made it work and ultimately we can say we got something.

Coming from a solid “C” average college student — the something in this instance is at the very least “average.”

At least its not terrible.