Running With Grace
03 Jul 2010 Leave a Comment
in Running
On several occasions I had been asked a simple question about what did I think about when out there on the road? The answer would be something like this. I can tell you what my thoughts were. Most of the time I’m doing my best to not think about anything.
Running is all about grace and rhythm, smoothness as you glide through the air. You want to be as a bird in flight, as a fish in water and as the flow of sweat dripping down your cheek. It’s a time when you really get to know yourself. I mean really know yourself!
So the thoughts you try are your best, is to not have them when running. It takes away from why you’re out there. No one does much thinking, as long as his habits take care of him and provide pleasant results. Think begins when a habit fails.
A boy must be in the habit of going hunting with his father every time he gets a chance. Let us suppose that he also plays on a neighborhood baseball team. If his father proposes a hunting trip on the day of an important game, the boy is confronted with a problem. One set of habits tells him to go with his father, while another set of him tells him to stay.
This situation does not compel the boy to think. He can settle the matter by flipping a coin, or in some other fashion. Thinking would require him to consider in imagination, the results of both courses in action. He would ask himself, what will happen if I go hunting? He would also ask himself, what would happen if I stayed and played with the team? In this way, he could allow the probable future to direct in some degree his present line of action. We think in order to improve the quality of our behavior.
Thought is the process of examining an idea to see if it is fit to believe and act upon. We can easily find out the consequences of a proposed act by doing it and seeing what happens. But if the consequences turn out to be bad, there is no way of undoing the act. The process of thought allows us to work out the consequences of an act in imagination, as a basis for deciding whether to do it or not.
