I mentioned Monday how in love I am with the treadmill, but I don’t think I’ve told the story of how I got started running in the first place.
In 2008, I was in college. Of course, how I viewed this was “I’m an adult!” After I left high school I viewed myself as a person who worked who happened to go to school. Of course, as a young full-time student, I think I was a little off in my perception of myself.
Either way, work was a big priority for me. And I had this job – this job I loved – and I took a (sort of up but in an off-shot direction) promotion to something at which I knew I wouldn’t be as good.
Anyway, long story. Doesn’t really matter. If you ever really want to know, ask me to lunch sometime I’ll tell you all about it. Point is, I ruined this job I loved. And I decided to leave. In some ways, I think this was a good decision. In some ways, I think this was a horrible one. But you know, how can you really judge a path you didn’t go down?
Anyway, I was so very stressed at the decision I’d made! “Should I have left that job?” “Did I ruin my chances at ever doing anything in this industry in the future?”
I had all this new time on my hands. So, I sat around, watched a lot of television, and ate a whole lot of ice cream.
After this went on for a few weeks, I just thought, “I cannot live this way!”
I went walking around beautiful New York City. And somewhere I saw a sign for some marathon. Which marathon – who knows. But I just saw the word marathon and thought, “Yes. That’s it.” Something to give me purpose, something to give me a goal.
So I started running. And I thought I was gonna die after half a mile. But I slowly but surely worked up little by little. And every week felt better.
Running was incredible. It is incredible.
I felt like I can never really know how my career is gonna go. So much of that is up in the air. (Goodness gracious has that continued to be instilled in me over the past few years – this business is rejection city, baby.)
But running was the one thing I actually could control. It didn’t matter is I knew the right people or accidentally reminded someone of an ex-wife or any of the other millions of reasons you don’t get a job. With running, the only person I had to rely on was me. I make the decision each morning. Do I run or do I not?
It feels awesome to be so in control when there’s so much we can’t control. (Of course the hilarious irony of this is that when I got sick, even running was taken out of my control when I wasn’t allowed to go on runs, but I digress.)
I run to feel powerful. I run to feel in control. I run to remind myself that as wonderful as all of the things outside of me are, at the end of the day the only person I ever truly need to rely on is me.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s a treadmill downstairs with my name on it.