Jog (Walk) of life

While I write this, I might sound like a little kid that talks all the time about the latest toy it picks up to play with. Jogging is the new toy (habit) that I picked up only recently for obvious reasons--keep fit. But, little did I realize, and it did not take me long to figure out, that jogging is more mental than physical, more than what I could fathom before I started. In fact after a point physical faculties of your body have a very little role to play. Sounding like a kid stops here. What I am trying to get at is an analogy between jogging and the way we live or the life itself. To put in the simplest possible manner, life is something that presents itself with lot of surprises (good and bad), hurdles (easy and difficult), relationships (simple to more complex) etc., and above all, some bigger purpose. Every one's life has got a bigger purpose whether you see it or not, whether you believe in it or not. A person managing an orphanage defines many people's lives. A normal living guy might have helped someone to study well and achieve success in life. That is the bigger purpose of their lives. But no matter what is the bigger purpose, as humans we live in details. We need our friends to notice and appreciate when we wear new shoes. We need our teacher to say "very good" when we score that few marks more than last exam. We want our pet to come running at us when we reach home. We live in details, whether we see bigger purpose of our life or not. It is those details that bring us to a particular moment, define our moments, determine what we are going to do tomorrow, determine whether to pursue a relationship or not etc. We live in details otherwise we go insane (or at least we are not prepared to handle anything that has no details). Let me explain a bit. We go to watch a movie. If, from the start to end the movie were to just go about its message for which it is meant, it would not last for more than few minutes. It is the details that keep us hooked to the movie. The message (read as bigger purpose) of the movie comes only in the end. We live in details. Hurdles. Very few hurdles in life demand our physical self to get over. Majority of them are to be tackled mentally. You walk out of the house set out to do something and someone says you look ugly. You perform a task and your boss says you did not do the way it is supposed to be done. These are little hurdles for example that make or break our confidence. Hardly anything physical about them. It needs your mind to come to tackle such situations. Success. To me, it should be like walking upstairs rather than climbing a steep cliff. Only then you will be able to celebrate your every step of success. Not only that your success step is stable than hanging on a cliff even if it is at a higher level, but also you get to spend time looking around what it is like to be at that level. It helps you to look back at the steps that helped you reach the step you are in, to help someone who might be immediately below you. Success should be a logical succession of your previous step. I am not saying that someone failed at one attempt will fail at the next attempt. I am just saying that your 1000th step should be preceded by 999th step or may be 990th step and not a jump from your 1st step.
Jogging to me has all the ingredients that I mentioned above. Every little nuances of life, I believe, is captured in the process of jogging. It is a more natural succession to what all we can do every day i.e. walking. However, from the time you get off the bed, a part of your mind starts competing with your goal. At every step of the run, at every turn of the lap, at every mile, it tells you to stop. Hope, discipline, determination is called for at every step, to succeed. We think that we all need some time alone every day. Swami Vivekananda strongly recommended that everyone spend some time alone in a day. However, the question is how well are we prepared to handle ourselves even if we get that time to spend time alone. I believe very few are that well prepared. We can spend endless hours with people around us even if do not talk to them, but find it difficult to spend time alone. Jogging brings you to that situation face to face. The bad guy in our mind competes with us, tells us to stop at every step of progress. But it (jogging) teaches you to tell that guy that "I am going to carry on". Believe me or not, he is going to compete at first, bear with you next, give in and finally become your friend and help you reach that bigger goal--keep fit.

ps. Philosophy aside. I suggest, the ones that are serious about jogging, to visit www.halhigdon.com (courtesy: Karthik Ramanathan). There are nice running schedules for runners of all levels.