When I was marathon training, there were three letters that loomed like a dark cloud over every run: DNF. Did Not Finish. I began every run with the thought of those letters being attached to my name. Lining up on race day with months of training behind me, some of it quite lonely, I stood caught in the grip of fear, afraid my feet wouldn't even move for fear of not finishing. That fear very nearly got the best of me, and in some ways it did because it stole my joy.
I have a fear of failure. Of quitting. Or more accurately, of what people will think of me if they know I quit. But something happened yesterday morning on my run. I quit. Not that run, because as far as runs go, it was a pretty good one, but another race I didn't even know I was running. Somewhere along the way, I jumped track and got off course. I stopped running the race set before me and started running The Comparison Race. And The Pleasing Race. And the I Wish They Liked Me Race. And The I Wish I Was Enough Race. And those are tiring races. They are races no one can win because they never end. So I decided to quit.
Quitting is good sometimes. It can be liberating because it frees you up to do the things you should have been doing all along. It made me want to run like Phoebe in that episode of Friends--arms flailing, carefree and careless of what other people thought of her. There is something to be said for quitting. I dare you. Just figure out what it is in your life stealing your joy, and chances are it is something you can quit. Chances are, it isn't your circumstances that make you so unhappy, it is what you think those circumstances say about who you are that does.
Yesterday, I told my circumstances to take a hike because from now on, I'm running my own race.
I have a fear of failure. Of quitting. Or more accurately, of what people will think of me if they know I quit. But something happened yesterday morning on my run. I quit. Not that run, because as far as runs go, it was a pretty good one, but another race I didn't even know I was running. Somewhere along the way, I jumped track and got off course. I stopped running the race set before me and started running The Comparison Race. And The Pleasing Race. And the I Wish They Liked Me Race. And The I Wish I Was Enough Race. And those are tiring races. They are races no one can win because they never end. So I decided to quit.
Quitting is good sometimes. It can be liberating because it frees you up to do the things you should have been doing all along. It made me want to run like Phoebe in that episode of Friends--arms flailing, carefree and careless of what other people thought of her. There is something to be said for quitting. I dare you. Just figure out what it is in your life stealing your joy, and chances are it is something you can quit. Chances are, it isn't your circumstances that make you so unhappy, it is what you think those circumstances say about who you are that does.
Yesterday, I told my circumstances to take a hike because from now on, I'm running my own race.
1 comment:
If i may channel my inner Thoreau; step to the beat that you hear, however measured or far away
Post a Comment