It All Costs
It took me and hour and 45 minutes to run errands and workout today, it took eight minutes and 48 seconds to fold and put away my laundry, 42 minutes to clean my bedroom, and 16 minutes to empty the dishwasher and clean the kitchen. Why does this matter? why did I time it or even notice how long it took? it matters because the more I organize my time and tasks, the better I get in touch with a deep truth. The truth is simple: things cost. Things cost money and time, or even attention or mental space, however you want to measure it.
One of the most ominous foreboding and formidable walls that exist is such that it could never be found in the history books or on a map, and many may never meet it at it’s boundaries. I am talking, of course, of “the wall” — the one hits when running a marathon. The wall is the point at which you’ve depleted your carbs and your body really starts to try and get that whole “stop this or I’ll kill you” message through. When I started preparing for my first marathon, I heard a lot about the wall from videos and other runners who had already done marathons. The wall hurts — a lot. In fact, just training hurts a lot. The day I had my longest training run leading up to the event (it was about 21 miles I think) I hadn’t slept or eaten right the night before and it was a hot morning, and there was a septic smell in the air from all of the houses that backed up to the trail we were running on. Training for a marathon hurts, and you know what will make it hurt even more? if you go into it expecting it to be a pain-free endeavor. When you cross the finish and get your medal you’ve paid a price, it costs pain.
As I begin to really truthfully write down all of the things I want to see come to pass in my life and in this new year specially, I am coming to terms with this reality that I cannot expect to invest my time into so many different areas and expect to see a return. However, the great thing is, I am able to really hone in on those things which are important to me and get the ball rolling with at least a few simple goals for which I do have the time.
