“It’s not your job to like me–it’s mine.” ~ Byron Katie

 

I saw this quote at the bottom of this daily engineering e-newsletter I get at work. I’d never heard of Byron Katie, so I looked her up. I don’t generally buy in to the whole commercialized “self-help” movement, but I REALLY liked this quote.

This quote spoke to me particularly because this really is the reason I fell in love with running. I needed to make it MY job to like me and stop seeking approval elsewhere.

I have found that through running I’ve developed more confidence in myself, I have goals that are both short and long, and all are attainable. By creating goals in running, I’ve begun creating, or re-creating, goals in other parts of my life as well. New interests have budded, and I’ve taken them seriously. Old interests have re-emerged and I’ve embraced them. I’ve begun to incorporate my new goal-setting attitude. It’s quite exciting, and not nearly as intimidating as I may have thought it was at this time last year. …Though it was about this time last year, that I really realized how off track I’d become.

Don’t get your heads in a tizzy, dear readers, I wasn’t blowing lines or turning tricks

I was; however, caught in a whirlwind of other people’s drama that I seriously wanted nothing to do with anymore. So, quite simply, I stopped. It was last 4th of July weekend when I just stopped. see ya, I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to be around this negativity, unhealthy lifestyles, warped thinking. No. I was done.

I didn’t like where my life had headed and a lot of it really had to do with the fact that I put too much emphasis on what other people were thinking. This is quite the opposite of my attitude earlier in life where I couldn’t have given a flying hoot who thought what about me.

When I started running “for realsies” last August I redeveloped my sense of self, my sense of purpose. It’s been a struggle, at times, to not just give in and revert to the old ways (and sometimes easier) of just not caring, or not doing, but I have persevered thus far.  My running is improving, I’m excited about new races, and long term goals, and seeing my pace get faster, and my body getting stronger. I feel … more alive, on a daily basis. The air is sweeter, the smiles are bigger, I am nicer, the cats are cuter (ok, yea right, the cats were always super cute – which reminds me, in 2 weeks it’s my one year anniversary of volunteering at the shelter)

When I began reading running blogs, which was well before I started writing about my own running, I read several posts from various bloggers about how running made them better people, how it improved their life overall. To be honest, I was extremely skeptical that “running” could do this for people. Well, I’m more than willing to admit that I’ve been proven wrong.

Through running, I’ve taken ownership of myself, and my attitude about myself. It’s important to me to get up at 530 every day and get a run in, or a workout that will make me a better runner. It’s important to me to wake up early (though not quite as early) on weekends and do long runs, and fuel properly. I’m not interested in hitting up bars filled with a bunch of (likely underage) idiots until 3am. no thanks. A deep restorative sleep so I can get up and prove to myself that I’m worthwhile sounds way more fun. It’s important to me that I like who I am, and I couldn’t give two kitten turds if “you” don’t.  (that’s the royal “you” and in no way referring to any of my darling reader).

I saw this quote on Thursday and I have been wanting to blog about it since then. But it wasn’t until I actually started writing this post that I realized that it was a year ago this weekend that I believed the essence of what Byron Katie is saying (even if I didn’t know at the time that she’d said it).

I hope that you all are having a wonderful holiday weekend. I still have no plans, and I don’t really know if I’ll make any. I think I might rather like celebrating my own personal victory with my own, much improved, self.