A Space for Uncomfortable Goals: Part 1 - 'Unknown Territory'

I have always been a runner, even as a child.

In fact, I think most kids are natural runners, always in motion, always at play. I know I was. Most of my earliest memories involve some form of running. I even remember my first real ‘run‘, when I circumvented the city block in Colorado where we lived for the very first time. I distinctly remember feeling that running that far was unknown territory and I was not sure if I could do it. Yet, as I ran I was surprised at how quickly each corner came. My doubt and fear were slowly replaced by a sense of completeness. I had discovered something new.

Later, as a teen-ager I spent many miles on the trails and back roads of North Carolina, learning how to push that Unknown Territory further and further out ahead of me, thriving in the midst of myself, pushing through the limits imposed by doubt and fear. I won many races during that time. Yet, the real joy in running came from where my feet took me, the challenges I faced and the life-lessons I learned.  

Running has always been like this for me, a combination of wonder and fear and movement and discovery.

It is this mixture of fear of the unknown and satisfaction of completing a difficult challenge that prompts us to do many of the activities in our lives, including running. We reach out into unknown territory, holding hope and perseverance in our hands like a lantern, and we end up finding new things that make our understanding of the world grow. Fear prompts action which in turn prompts discovery.

Ironically, I think this is also why many of us stop challenging ourselves at some point in our lives. In confronting Unknown Territory we discover that sometimes darkness is hiding darkness and not all discoveries are good. [After all, it is this same psychological combination, fear + action = results, that has been used throughout history by those in power to convince people to do things they might not otherwise do. We are exposed to fear-based advertising on a daily basis. We are entertained by fear-based movies and TV. And at the most extreme, we are continuously kept ’at war’ with either real people (Iraq, Afghanistan…) or ideas (drugs, terrorism, poverty).] Bombarded by notions of FEAR at every turn, we grow weary and no longer care to explore Unknown Territory.

Nevertheless, running has taught me that it is exactly during these periods, when the world seems too dangerous and we are afraid to take chances, that we need to re-evaluate who we really are and what we really want in life. What are our goals and where is our journey taking us?

For this reason, I have decided to make a conscious decision these days to allow space for uncomfortable goals.

[part two]