Motivation For The Long Run

 

 

A few years ago I received a GPS watch for Christmas. This is a gadget that athletes (or people like me) use to monitor their activities. It can tell you how fast you’re going, track your route, and give you a plethora of stats in all combinations of pace and distance. It even tracks changes in elevation – an absolute must in southern Manitoba.

 

I wanted one for a couple of reasons. One was so that when I’m anywhere not clearly partitioned by mile sections, I am able to track distance without mapping out a route that I am bound to forget anyway. The other reason was because I thought it would push me to go faster. Which it did not.

 

When I run, I think I have a pretty good perception of my pace. But when I would look at my watch, if the speed showed slower, I felt deflated because, Oh my goodness I’m barely moving!! And if the speed showed faster, I felt deflated because, Oh my goodness, I’ll NEVER keep up this pace!!

 

It has a feature where you can set a pace, and if you dip below that pace, it will beep at you until you’re back up to speed. How could this possibly not be helpful?

 

I think some people can use this feature constructively, but at the time, it wasn’t really working for me. When I think I’m going as fast as possible, and something is beeping/advising me of my deficiency, I don’t respond especially well. I found it to be annoying and distracting and eventually felt like hitting it with a hammer, but I never had one handy.

 

It didn’t really take me too long to drop this strategy of motivation by deficiency. On my watch, at least.

 

Of course it’s harder to drop it everywhere else, and it likes to show up in forms of comparison and fear and shame.

 

Comparison pops up in the check-out line when I figure the girl on the fitness magazine is good motivation to live off of cabbage soup and casually spend six hours a day working out. Or after I’ve forgotten Parent-Teacher interviews (again) and I’m reminded of other mothers who seemingly never miss appointments and probably haven’t even once forgotten their children in the grocery store. Or after soccer practice. Or at a gas station (but only for a second).

 

Another motivation by deficiency is fear/shame. And this can be big business in your spiritual life, if you let it. When I’m so busy trying love my neighbor enough to make God happy, I don’t genuinely see my neighbor – I’m just trying not to get smote.

 

I’ll try to paraphrase a talk I heard by Richard Rohr. When spirituality is based on fear, you gather a lot of people who aren’t really that interested in loving the world. You create a people of fear and of very real, but very well-disguised self-interest. You do not have to be a loving person to be a Christian. You do not need a desire to serve the world, or take care of anyone else.

 

Well, no. Because when you’re afraid of the smiting, you’re really just trying to stay out of trouble, and there’s not much time for anything or anyone else. But it generally doesn’t hold, and you end up in trouble anyway, usually with some pretty tragic consequences to boot.

 

If I had taken a hammer to these motivators a while back, there may have been a little more God-connecting and a little less running in circles, chasing after something that can’t really be caught. Something that, at best, keeps me in a small, tight circle that has no room for real connections. And at worst, is wholly self-destructive.

 

I don’t think I can strong-arm myself into any kind of lasting change or growth. There’s inner work that can be done, for sure. And there are always choices to be made, and life hacks that we can use to live more fully.

 

But at my very core I needed to know that we are loved regardless of whether or not we ever do anything right or worthy. Thomas Merton says, “The root of Christian love is not the will to love, but the belief that one is loved, the belief that one is loved although unworthy, or rather irrespective of one’s worth.”

 

After that, thoughts of, “Am I good enough? Am I running fast enough? Oh, jeepers, what if I fall again —I don’t want to get smote...” just kind of went away. I mean they try to sneak back in, but once you flick the lights on they tend to bugger off pretty quick.

 

There is something freeing and brave-making about knowing we can’t screw it up – I mean, we can and will screw up – but that’s not the same as screwing it up – as in, beyond hope. We might forget this – but even with our usual strategy of fits and starts, I think it gets us there.

 

Or maybe knowing this means we’re already there – fits, starts and everything. And from this place we can do amazing things. From this place the fear of falling doesn’t affect us as much because the landing is softer. And if we’re not constantly afraid of falling, we are free to look around and truly see people.

 

And that moves me.