Relapse is Part of Success

Relapse gets a bad rap. Positive change is never absolutely forward motion with nary a glance back. Positive change includes failing then trying again, blowing it off then recommitting, changing our minds and then changing back again.

It’s like when I started running. Again.

Someone asked me what made me start running now. Apparently my current spate of running has been going on long enough that people identify me (and I identify me) as a person who runs. But I didn’t start running now; I started running a quarter of a century ago and then I quit. A few years later I tried again and stopped. A few years after that I was back at it but got injured. Then once again I tried but lost interest. This time, for right now, I’m maintaining but my whole running story has been going on for years and years.

This is something I only appreciate in hindsight because in those in between times I wasn’t working on running, I was working on other stuff. None of the other stuff was overtly running related but it’s still all part of my running story, which is a small