Running Respite

More often than not, the world at large acts intent on showing us the worst it has to offer.

The news is rife with riots, wars, disasters, and hate.  Those in power (and those wishing to appear in power) seem dodgy at best and downright subversive at worst.  The people we know and love are, well, people, complete with all the imperfections unfortunately inherent with membership in humanity.

 

But there is good in this world.

 

In fact, there is quite a bit of good.

 

The news will often hide it, those in power (and those wishing to appear in power) try to exploit it, and the people we know and love sometimes overlook it.

 

But it's still there.  Persistently, constantly, unrelentingly there.

 

We just have to be able to see it.

 

It would be silly to try and state that running is ultimate mechanism by which we see such goodness, but it would be equally silly to simply dismiss the notion that it is a lens through which we can view the world.

 

In a time of 24-hour news cycles and hyper-connectivity that never allows for time to process, running slows things down and unplugs us, letting us wade through the cacophony that has been blasted into our minds.  The simplicity of taking the next step, combined with the beauty of the environments around us has an amazing ability to lift our spirits and let us see the wonder and the majesty that is our world.

 

What's more, running is one of the few facets of life that we can almost totally control.  We control when we run, where we run, how far we run, how fast we run, etc., etc., etc., and perhaps this control of something as seemingly trivial as running can help us get a grip on those parts of life with a little more gravity than putting one foot in front of the other.

 

Maybe we have a skewed perspective, and maybe the benefits are a bit overstated...

 

...but maybe we would all be better off if more people would go for a run...