Believing In The Light I Couldn't See

I have been really busy for the past couple of weeks, I realized I had the opportunity to get to a milestone that I never thought was possible when I was looking over my stats on Fitbit and noticed that if I was willing to go all out and walk as often as possible that I might be able to reach 600 miles in three months... and I did it with a day to spare. From July 1st until September 30th I walked over 607 miles, 126 hours of that time was active exercise and I ended up with more than 1,200,000 steps.

I was thrilled when I reached the milestone for many reasons, one because I proved to myself that I could do it, two I proved that age is not a factor if you put all your effort into it and three I removed many excuses out of my life to achieve the goal. There were mornings I thought about just hopping on a bus, misty days I thought about staying home and days where I thought what's a couple of days off going to hurt?... Each time an excuse came up I brushed them off and just walked... do you know what? I don't regret one moment of the steps I took, not one... each one made me feel healthier and stronger. 

What is my next goal? With the cooler months approaching I am going to have to use every available good weather moment to exercise and I have started strength training... I am new to it, so it will take a little time to get comfortable, nothing new feels easy right away, eventually I will be a pro at that too... I have stopped looking for excuses to give up and I just started doing. I think one of the best slogans is the Nike one that said 'Just Do It'... there is nothing more simple and more true.

Am I trying to say it is easy? Not at all... I think we have to work hard to keep getting better, at least for me there is one excuse after another that I could come up with to validate why I can't stay on this path but none of them are true or good excuses. It is funny how I spent so much time talking myself out of doing when it was far less effort to just do it... What I gained more than anything from this was finding out how cathartic exercise really is, whenever something tough or emotional would come up, I would walk and it gave me time to think things through and clear my head. 

 

This was especially true with the last part of September being an anniversary that could have pulled me down if I let it, instead I walked the pain of that anniversary away... I was a little melancholy but I dealt with it in a really good way... I did not give into the sadness. There are more of these days on the way but that was one of the worst ones and if can get through that one, I can get through the other ones... at least the other ones are not nasty painful ones, just good memories that became sad... We all have those, finding out that life doesn't always turn out the way it should or the way we expected....

You know what I learned from the horrible challenge I had to deal with the last two years? I became incredibly grateful for all the trials that I made it through before that one... because each one of those trials was building me stronger to make it through the most difficult one. I knew there was a light even though I couldn't see it, I held onto that... that little bit of Faith and Hope... Trials are a little like exercise, it doesn't necessarily feel good while you are going through it but ultimately it makes you stronger...

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