Change -- in running, in politics, in life -- can be a good thing, a vehicle of renewal, revision, reform. Yet in these times, change too often occurs for the wrong reasons, or for no reason at all, wreaking havoc upon innocent lives for nothing. I'm not just talking death and destruction here, although there is far, far too much of that. I'm talking about the niggling little changes that pick, pick, pick at our quality of life day after day after day: those that may not knock us for a full loop, but nevertheless leave us frequently fighting for our balance. And too many of these changes are precipitated by our corporate overlords, who then blame us for our difficulty in adapting to them.
Yes, change is frequently good, and more frequently bad -- like the ominious changes taking in place in my sinuses right now, three days before a race; like the wretched decline that our country has taken in the past six years under the Bu$hCo regime; like the slow but steady decline of mental health in South Carolina and, consequently, of my own job satisfaction.
By the way, I took a day off from running today. It wasn't entirely planned, but I knew that I would not do much today, and the beer I had with a friend after work plus the tofu Philly cheese steaks (yeah, I know, but it's not so bad) that my wife and I had for dinner sealed the deal. I needed a break after that botched, excessively fast tempo run I did yesterday. My back was sore today, in part as a result of that run, so I didn't even do any ab work this evening. I had work to do, anyway: work on resumes, applications, finding e-mail addresses, thinking about what the hell I would tell someone in an interview, things that I haven't had to think about in years.
What was I saying about change? Some people relish it. I can only take it in small doses, and preferably on my own terms. Thus I find this entire process absolutely loathsome.
