The past year and a half, I’ve had a goal of geting in 10K steps a day. Working from home doing a sedentary job gives me little reason to move unless I make a point of it. I wear a little pedometer (meet FitBit) in order to remind myself of how little I’ve walked each day. And sometimes, I do *great* at meeting my simple little challenge.
But then life happens. I get sick. My knee hurts. We’re on the road. I’m tired. I’m too busy. Excuses, excuses.
The worst is when I push myself too hard. I have so many friends out there on facebook and Daily Mile who are working towards doing or have done amazing things. Half-marathons, marathons, triathalons. I get wistful and imagine that while a triathalon is out of my league, I could *at least* work a better time on a 5K than I did at Thanksgiving. So I tried a Couch-2-5K. First day my shins and knee started to hurt. Really hurt. Then I couldn’t walk for weeks without pain.
And, really, I don’t want to be a runner. I have always pictured myself as more of a long-distance *walker*. So I’ve decided to be really, really happy for all my friends who are discovering that they can do amazing things without thinking I should be doing the same. And I’ll keep on plodding along.
Being really, really happy with the thing we have to give seems like the ultimate self-acceptance. I love it. And need to do more of it myself.