Just Slogging Along · 1 August 2015
A couple friends of mine and I were talking about running and they both said that sometimes, you just have to slog along. You just need to put in the miles whether there is any excitement or not. Whether the running seems more like work than fun. In fact, according to my friends, running is slogging out the miles more often than not. While I am finding that to be somewhat true with running, I find that there are days when I just need to slog along with my writing too.
Some people wonder what it is about running that makes people slog through those miles. They wonder why people put themselves through the pain and suffering. Through the cold and wet. Through the hot and muggy. They wonder whether going through the motions is worth whatever perceived gains a person attains from running. Or any endeavor for that matter.
Personally, I find great personal satisfaction from being able to run for forty minutes or more almost every day. There are days when I do not want to start. There are days when I want to quit partway through. There are days when I wonder what I am doing out on the road. But when I am finished, I realize that God is right. I need to run. To be more healthy for sure, but also just because He told me to do it.
Now, not everybody has been directed by God or their doctor or anybody else to run, but I have been. I know not why, but it seems that my Creator has instructed me to run. So I run. Sometimes, I just slog along. But sometimes I feel like I could run forever, it feels so effortless. Those are the days that make the slogging worth it. Those are the days that runners live for.
I find this to be the same with writing. Sometimes, I just need to slog through a writing session. It is one of those things that I believe God is telling me to do, but at least so far, I have found more great days than slogging days. I write with joy in my heart instead of dreading the session at the keyboard. Most of the time.
But there are days.
There are days when I find myself slogging along on the keyboard. I pound and pound and nothing comes out. Nothing worthwhile anyway. I look and see the rubbish that I have put into my files. And sometimes I look and see that the rubbish has made it to my blog or my books. When I do that, I wonder if I was just slogging along or if I was writing without a care in the world and just missed the fact that I had written so poorly. Or I wonder if I am just a poor writer who has deluded himself into thinking he has talent.
Either way, I find myself needing to slog along. Both in writing and in running.
The more I run, the more I find that I need to run. Just like with writing. The more I write, the more I need to write. Not that the words can flow each day like turning on a faucet, but I need to get the words onto the computer. I need to get my daily output done. Not just to say that I did it. At least not most of the time. I need to write to keep the juices flowing. Just like I need to run to keep the blood flowing.
Whether I am writing or running, I know that there are days when I can have joy in my heart and just run or write forever. Just like I know that there are days when I just need to run to run and write to write. There are days when I just need to slog along. But when I look back, I realize that just slogging along leads to more of those beautiful days of running and writing effortlessly. Which makes me glad that regardless of the circumstances, I know I just need to keep slogging along and enjoying the process. Of whatever it is I am supposed to be doing.
© 2015 Michael T. Miyoshi
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