Slow down...

Running has always symbolized everything desirable in the world for me - freedom, effort, reward, stamina, endurance, solitude and perhaps most importantly, free-spiritedness. Running with the wind-in-my hair brought me closer to myself and strangely to the world around me. The steady rhythm of my pulsing heart and the rhythmic footfalls would often take me to a place of peace and rest - far from the turmoil of the world. 

It was the one thing that I have always wanted to do - even when I couldn't actually do it. When my breaths were clouded by puffs of asthalin or when my lungs hated the very air they breathed refusing to cooperate - running was all I wanted to do. Not swimming, not tennis, not pilates - just running. Years of steroids, anti-histamines and inhalers later, I can run today! Perhaps not a marathon yet, but I am a lot better than where I started out from a couple of years ago - gasping and wheezing my way to the kilometer mark.

Over the years, even as this simple act of putting one foot ahead of another at a steady clip has morphed my body, it has also constantly moulded my mind. In fact, I am probably still trying to learn my most important lesson - to slow down.

A simple five letter word - speed, has stood for all that is good and desirable for so long. Speed, to me, always correlated with efficiency and was always desirable and subject to improvement. Despite the childhood stories of the hare and the tortoise, I only learnt to blame the over-confidence and lack of consistency of the hare, not its speed. 

But that was the understanding of youth - where faster meant better. 

Today, I know the virtues of being slow and steady and I also know that I have always tried to run faster than I should. Both on the road and in life - making speed my biggest handicap. 

My biggest weakness.

The one thing that would restrict me to shorter distances and hold me back with longer recoveries. 

I had always pushed myself too hard. I was the survivor who was trained to pick the difficult option at every intersection, because 'life is never easy'. I was the one who pushed myself in every way imaginable, chasing dreams, passions and goals - so much so that life felt like a long, interminable marathon, where I was breathless for a large part of the way. 

In my eagerness to finish, I would run faster and harder - only to tire myself sooner and further. It was a vicious cycle where the only solution was to learn to slow down. 

Today, after months of conscious effort, I have slowed myself on the road - a little but not enough. I run longer and easier. 

But the same skill needs to be applied in everyday life as well. Sadly, life doesn't come with easy mile-markers and stop-watches. One has to learn to pace oneself, to know how much one can and must endure. 

Each day, as I slip on my running shoes and head out in the evenings, I try and remind myself to slow down and to enjoy the happiness for as long as I can - to not go chasing the end. Even as my feet hurtle down the familiar terrain, I will myself to slow down because there is a long road ahead. 

This is a reminder for the rest of my life too - to slow down and to not rush into things; because sometimes the journey is more important than the destination and there is a long, winding road ahead.