How Long Can You Keep Running?

“All the time, I hear people say life is short; we really don’t have much time; it all goes by so quickly.

I have no idea what they’re talking about.”

Unbeknownst to my cousin, his lighthearted, seemingly comical comments over dinner would take me down a rabbit hole for the next few weeks.

“The way I see it, life is long. I’m only 30; I’ve got 50 more years of this.”

50 more years of this . . .

And then back to dinner we went. 

It’s tough not to have a knee jerk reaction when you hear a statement like that - 50 more years of this.

Some feel happy. Excited, even, at the adventure that 50 more years could bring.

I’d be fooling myself if I didn’t think others felt sad, lamenting 50 more years of what could be a life less than what they truly desire.

I certainly wasn’t sad when I was hit with the reality of 50 more years. But I wasn’t happy either. Definitely not excited. 

If anything I felt tired. Tired like when it’s only Tuesday and you’re already exhausted with your job. And you don’t have to hate your job to feel tired. You can like your work, but at the end of the day, work is work.

Similarly, I’d say I like my life - love it at times even -  but it still feels like work to maintain. And work is tiring.

Work in a job is self explanatory. But what is the work of life that’s tiring me out?

A LESS COOL RUN CLUB

The suns and shadows theme for today is peace vs escape.

We all have bits of our lives that we like and bits that we don’t. Seasons and realities that we want to embrace and those we’d like to ignore at all costs.

When I first started writing this piece, I was hyper fixated on avoiding the life I don’t want as the primary means of escape. Nobody’s life is perfect - we all have parts that we wished were different. And we all have our favorite ways to turn the world off and get away from those parts when they get to be too much.

In this sense, we’re always running from some thing.

As I continued writing though, it occurred to me that striving towards the life I want - or the life I think I need - is as much a means of escape as running from the life I don’t. Our goals and ambitions have a way of pulling us from, even separating us from, the life we’re living today. We spend so much time in the future that we neglect the present. Because why wrestle with the hardships of today when they’ll all be gone tomorrow when we reach where we’re really supposed to be?

Much of our escape then is also running to some thing.

Running to is perhaps a bit more palatable than running from, but they both serve the same purpose - a way for me to cope with (or ignore) the parts of my life today that I don’t love.

Listen, I get it. We all have goals and aspirations. And not just aspirations of wealth and success, but those of impact and change. Noble aspirations. Who am I to tell you to stop striving for yours? I certainly won’t stop striving for mine.

But this - this moment, this season, this time, this period - this is life. This is it. This is all we have. All we get. The troubles of today may fade but they’ll only be replaced by the troubles of tomorrow. Things will get better and then they’ll get worse. And then better again. Things you hope never change; things you can’t wait until they do change - you’ll always have those things in your life. You’ll be happy and you’ll be sad; you’ll be excited and you’ll be disappointed - you’ll always have all the emotions. Now for fear of sounding pessimistic, let me be clear, I think it’ll all be OK at the end of the day, but it’ll be like this - however you want to define “this” - from now until the end of time.

Don’t run from this. This is your life.

A QUESTION WORTH ANSWERING

If we were having this conversation in person, this is the time I would look up to some mildly inspired or severely depressed faces. Depending on how you read the above, you’re going through a range of emotions right now.

All this isn’t to say that I don’t think the temporal characteristics of our lives won’t change. This physical place and specific emotion and general state of your life right now may very well change. And if you want it to change, I hope it does.

I mean more to say I’d like to get to a point when I become at peace with the imperfect nature of life. Because once life no longer needs to be perfect, it is free to be good. I suppose that’s the light at the end of this tunnel - when we stop running from an imperfect life, we give ourselves the freedom to find peace in a good life. It won’t all be good. And we certainly aren’t here to suffer. But there’s always going to be some thing to run from or run to.

The only question - how long can you keep running?

How long can you keep running from the unwanted parts of your life? James Baldwin said “not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” How long can you keep running before facing what you hope to change?

How long can you keep running to the life that you think will finally make you happy? How far is far enough? How much of your current life are you OK discounting through the belief that you don’t already have enough?

Ok, so maybe more than one question. But they all lead to one answer or the other - peace or escape.

In the moment, the two feel similar - relief from today’s problems. But escape is work. You can never really stop running. Not unless you’re ready to face what you’re trying to escape.

Peace is the only sustainable solution. Escape is the shadow we turn to when peace feels too unattainable.

The thing is, I’ve been running for a long time now. Almost 30 years at an all out sprint it feels like. I don’t think I can keep running for 50 more. I suppose I’ll just have to settle for peace.

(Second question you’ll probably want to answer is “what am I actually running from/to?” but I’ll let you unpack that on your own time)

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