The tiny rock in my shoe.

The tiny rock in my shoe

Before I meet Diane to run, I run 2-3 miles by myself. I love the social time with her, where we chat and solve the problems of the world, but I also cherish my time running alone. It gives me time to think--hence, this post--and pounding on the pavement really seems to help me ponder what's going on in my life. And it also burns extra calories so I can enjoy more chocolate and other yummy things I love. ☺

One morning, not too long ago, I had just started my run when I felt a tiny rock in my shoe. My first thought was, "Oh rats! I need to stop and remove that rock!" Then I remembered that I'd already untied and re-tied my shoes at least five times that morning because I can't stand the laces to be even a little bit tight on the top of my foot, and obviously, from the number of ties and re-ties, achieving this small but important thing had been a bit tough that morning. So as I was running, I kept going back and forth:

1. Stop. Remove the rock. Re-tie the shoe. Hope it's not too tight. Possibly repeat. More than once. Get frustrated. A lot.
2. Keep running. Try and ignore the rock. It's just a tiny rock, after all. Don't chance not getting the re-tying thing right. You'll be done in 60, 50, 40, 30,...minutes (can you tell this tiny rock did consume my thoughts a bit during this run?) and then you can get rid of it. It's only a few minutes. No big deal. It's not like it hurts or anything, it's just annoying. Really annoying.

So as I was having this debate with myself (thankfully it was an in-my-head-only debate and not a verbal debate. That would've been just plain weird!), I thought about a few things related to this tiny little rock:

1. How many little annoying--but totally unimportant--things are there in my life that I allow to worry me, or consume my thoughts, and cause me to waste precious time? I need to let go of them, get over them, and move on! 
2. I need to remove the little things that truly cause problems. It's not worth the time and effort continually spent keeping these tiny issues around. Get rid of them and move on!
3. Little, seemingly unimportant things can become big issues if they're not taken care of. Thinking about this tiny rock consumed my entire run, although part of the thinking was about the content for this post, so I think that's a good thing because I was able to ponder and then learn from some important concepts. ☺ But it is best to take care of true tiny problems now so they don't become big ones later.

And it was so nice to get home after my run and take that pesky little rock out of my shoe. ☺