On Running. And Excuses.

by knitred33

A while ago I wrote about how I wanted to start running and this amazing plan I had to make it happen. About that… I didn’t. I went running a couple days and then just stopped. I didn’t really make a conscious decision not to run; I just didn’t do it.

Until a few weeks ago, when I did. I just started running. Close to every day. I literally went from not running at all to running 2 miles every day. I love it. Which I find strange because I’ve never cared for running, unless it was in an attempt to preserve my life. (Which, quite frankly, has never happened… so you know, I never ran.) I love yoga and I sometimes like weight lifting, but running. Not so much.

But then I just started running. I started running because I was tired of my own excuses and really, why not? That’s the thing about us humans, we have excuses for everything. We are experts at talking ourselves out of the right thing. We don’t make time for exercise, our families, our dreams. We give up before we even try… all because of excuses.

Here’s the truth about excuses: they are just smoke. They cloud our vision and keep us from seeing what we can be, what we should be. And excuses only lead to one thing. Regrets. When we talk ourselves out of what is good, what is right, we regret our inaction. Or action, as the case may be. We cannot undo, we cannot rewrite our history. Excuses will steal your time, your dreams, your life.

I could keep making excuses. But anything worth having is worth fighting for. Even if the only thing you’re fighting is your own mind’s perceptions of what you cannot do.

So I keep running.