Tuesday, September 25, 2012

On Running and Judging

I’ve started running. I saw that everyone was doing the couch to 5K program and I thought it might be a good idea to do it myself. I’m into week six and I love it. Not only do I feel as though I’m getting physically stronger, I also get half an hour to myself in which I can clear my mind.
On some days, like today, I have great moments of clarity. While I was walking and was breathing heavily because I had just stopped running I met someone on the street. Being very self-conscious, I felt as though I needed to justify why I was breathing heavily. I felt like telling that person that I had in fact been running and I wasn’t that terribly out of shape, it just looked like it then.
Suddenly, I had a realization: We encounter so many people in our lives and even though we often only see little snippets of their existence, we pass judgment. We don’t know what has brought a person to that particular point in their lives. We don’t know how hard he/she has worked to achieve what they have at that moment. We don’t know at what point they are in their life's processes.
More importantly, it’s ok to be breathless. We should never feel as though we have to justify who we are.

2 comments:

  1. I am glad that this is one of the lessons I learned early in life. I am who I am and you can take it or leave it. More importantly, I am very happy with who I am, so others opinions of me are not relevant. Congrats to you on your running success! Keep up the good work:)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes! So much "yes". You would think, as adults, we would be over this fear of being judged- it seems so high school! I think it only gets worse as mothers though- then there are a whole new set of things we can be judged on. Are we in good shape? Are we good parents? Did you breastfeed long enough? It's just crazy.

    ReplyDelete