I ran the Philadelphia half marathon this morning and as I passed by the Unitarian Church I read the weekly quote that they post in front and it said "If you spend your time dreaming about your future self, you miss out on the person you are." Well, I had about seven miles left and the relentless knee pain was slowing me down, so there was plenty of time to mull the quote over. So I wondered, how do you draw the line between embracing who you are and wanting to be better or different? One of my favorite movie lines of all time comes from Junebug and goes something like this: "God loves you just the way you are, and too much to let you stay that way." But how could I embrace myself today and still have the motivation to be better?
I think it's all about looking at the positives. For example, today the person I was was someone who hadn't really trained as much as I should have and had also been ignoring knee pain for weeks. But I was also someone who ran a half marathon even though one side of my body felt like it was on fire. In the future, I would like to be someone who trains more but maintains the mental toughness to fight through pain when it comes.
Today I am someone who is a decent runner, but has little experience with biking or swimming. In the future, or in about six months when I do my first half-ironman to be more exact, I would like to have decent skills in all three sports.
Today I'm excited about the next finish line, but more importantly, I'm also excited about the journey.
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I love that quote. I also love this one: We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us. E.M. Forester.
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