Metaphors for Life: Running.

Running, for me, has always held the most metaphors for life. Almost every time I run I discover parallels to things I am going through; I made one such discovery today.

I haven't been running in a few weeks now, and I recently decided to pick it back up again during spring break. I am always amazed at how my body functions. Muscle memory and endurance, my body never forgets these things. Once I do start running again, the first week or so is usually pretty pathetic. I spend my time striving, grasping, pushing to even get one mile. Then one day, out of nowhere, something breaks and I run 10.

Ok, maybe not 10, I actually lost track of the laps I ran. I had listened to all of the album "Nothing Left To Lose" by Mat Kearney and gone back to listen to "All I Need" about 5 more times. So, how ever long that takes, that's as far as I ran.

And all because my body resilient.

It's is able to, after all this time, remember where it left off. "Oh, that's right," it says, "we were running, sprinting even. We had goals, a plan, an end to which we were destined to arrive." (whoa body, tone down on the poetry, wouldya?)

And I am able to pick back up, right where I left off, and move forward.

I also think the same is true in life.

We are resilient, able to bounce back after a hard fall. After some time on the ground, we are fully equipped to get back up and not only start running again, but quickly get back to the track we left.

Sometimes, after some time down, we may feel as if life has sped past us and catching up is simply impossible. Being down for any period of time feels wasteful, and setbacks, the end of the world. Because surely, the longer we aren't running, the more our body forgets how to run, right? And someday, when we are able to start running again, we will have to spend all that time teaching our bodies how to run once more.

But we all have setbacks, we all spend a little bit of time down. No one gets it perfect, especially not the first time around. It's not the falling down, it's the staying down that is the true setback.

I guess I say all this to say that we can't fear the fear of falling. To fear this is to fear what will inevitably and definitely happen, and that any break in momentum will set us up for an ultimate and unstoppable downward spiral. But something I've learned recently is that fearing failure and fearing setbacks blinds from decision making. Over thinking our lives to the point that we start to make decisions based on a comparison of what failure will hurt less is really no way to live.

But we are resilient.

In that we can get back up, get back on track, and, despite a really tough week or so of not being quite where we once believed we were, we will eventually, and probably sooner than we think, find ourselves right back on track.

So don't sweat it, just sweat, but not really, I mean yes, but no.

When you're ready, you can rest assured that your body remembers where you were when you stopped running, and you will get to that place again, and soon. And the world has not passed you by, it's just been waiting for you.