If you’re a runner or a cyclist, you’ll be able to relate to this well. Have you ever begun your run or ride and realized immediately that you were working so damn hard and making little progress? You feel yourself exerting tons of energy and yet, the wind resistance is so unrelenting that you struggle to advance anything.
At this point you begin to question your ability to run or pedal and start eyeing your watch. You entertain thoughts of returning home to an obscenely oversized bowl of ice cream and call it a day. If your inner conscience doesn’t allow you to quit however, you keep going and gradually adapt to the challenge continuing, albeit at a snail´s pace, but forward. Now it’s easier as your mind and body have learned to embrace the struggle and your muscles work hard to rise to the challenge.
Following your chosen course, there’s an abrupt shift in position and suddenly you have the wind at your back. Your movements seem effortless as you gallop along as though a huge hand were at your back pushing you ahead. In fact, you feel that if not careful, you’ll certainly fall forward. If biking, you shift into the highest gear actually yearning for some resistance. You’re cruising along at almost the speed of traffic and not even breathing hard. At this point you determine that it’s a joke and this activity can no longer be defined as “exercise.”
You have just experienced the “winds of change” and just when we think we can’t go any further, a small adjustment in direction is made and it’s as though we’re riding an escalator. This is my metaphor for life. Simple, yet profound.
The key is to just keep going, even if only able to accelerate little more than a virtual standstill. As you press on, circumstances and situations naturally and unexpectedly evolve thereby allowing opportunities to filter in. Without warning you’ll find yourself no longer struggling to survive, but thriving with the changed winds in your favor.
No matter what your predicament or quandry, never give up and never assume your fight is eternal. It’s just a moment in time. By practicing the virtue of patience and persistence, continue peddling toward the finish line. At the moment that you feel you cannot go on and are “out of gas,” change will take you by surprise and you’ll find that everything is miraculously quite simple.
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Written by Darah Zeledon. Mother of five, freelance writer, small business owner, and fitness freak, Darah has just returned to the US after living 9 years with her large brood in South America. Through an angle of humor, Darah´s uniquely optimistic perspective of raising children in today’s unstable world has been strongly influenced by her experiences running a household and various businesses in several foreign lands. You can read more of her here and here.