The marathon is just another metaphor for life lessons.
Not the usual. Run slowly, don't sprint, life is a ____________. Yes, marathon.
I'm referring to the metaphor that teaches you that to really know something is to experience it. Yet after the intial go (whatever you may have stepped out to do), the unknown is gone and it's much easier to pace yourself than to go all out sprinting, after all, it almost killed you that first time. If you've run a marathon, you can visualize that statement, it literally almost killed you. Be it the last 4, or 10 miles. Or let's be honest, maybe the whole thing.
I recently read an op-ed about this exact idea, the title I appropriately stole, a 26.2-mile meditation from the Boston Globe. The idea is that balancing the experience you've learned with the desire to out-do yourself in the next succesive endeavors is the art of it all. Thus, the meditation.
My take:
It's irrational to register for a marathon, truly. The body isn't intended to run 26.2 miles and evolution (okay, society) has only further developed our inclination to lounge like lizards, couch potatoes, or hibernate like bears, etc. than to run for hours. Plural.
However, it's just that irrationality that drives marathoners. The tenacity and grit it takes to overcome the societal force that says, "Why don't you just stay in with me and watch an episode of Jersey Shore. Snooki is going to something really crazy tonight!"
Except I prefer to be the one making the moves and not contributing to Snooki's irrational paycheck. Moreover, this meditation has taught me to just relax, to enjoy it. The goal shouldn't be to prove to others, but only to yourself. If you can do that, you've mastered the art of something else, perhaps even bigger.
For clarity, I've defined irrationality, the main focus of my meditation, here.
Irrationality:
a. Not endowed with reason.
Not the usual. Run slowly, don't sprint, life is a ____________. Yes, marathon.
I'm referring to the metaphor that teaches you that to really know something is to experience it. Yet after the intial go (whatever you may have stepped out to do), the unknown is gone and it's much easier to pace yourself than to go all out sprinting, after all, it almost killed you that first time. If you've run a marathon, you can visualize that statement, it literally almost killed you. Be it the last 4, or 10 miles. Or let's be honest, maybe the whole thing.
I recently read an op-ed about this exact idea, the title I appropriately stole, a 26.2-mile meditation from the Boston Globe. The idea is that balancing the experience you've learned with the desire to out-do yourself in the next succesive endeavors is the art of it all. Thus, the meditation.
My take:
It's irrational to register for a marathon, truly. The body isn't intended to run 26.2 miles and evolution (okay, society) has only further developed our inclination to lounge like lizards, couch potatoes, or hibernate like bears, etc. than to run for hours. Plural.
However, it's just that irrationality that drives marathoners. The tenacity and grit it takes to overcome the societal force that says, "Why don't you just stay in with me and watch an episode of Jersey Shore. Snooki is going to something really crazy tonight!"
Except I prefer to be the one making the moves and not contributing to Snooki's irrational paycheck. Moreover, this meditation has taught me to just relax, to enjoy it. The goal shouldn't be to prove to others, but only to yourself. If you can do that, you've mastered the art of something else, perhaps even bigger.
For clarity, I've defined irrationality, the main focus of my meditation, here.
Irrationality:
a. Not endowed with reason.
b. Affected by loss of usual or normal mental clarity; incoherent, as from shock.
c. Marked by a lack of accord with reason or sound judgment
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