My life's like a race,
But I'm keeping my pace
So I don't grow weary.
Oh! The crowd is cheering!
Keeping My Pace
If running in a pack I can never keep up. That's partly why I disliked phys ed when I was in school. Whenever we had to run en masse marathon style I could never keep up, eventually falling behind into a walk or maybe sitting down for a spell. I didn't realize until I was nearly fifty years old that I had gone through my life with a congenital heart defect which explained my inability to endure extended physical activity.
Over the years I would occasionally get seriously winded in a way that seemed like a cardiac event of some sort, but then after taking a rest I'd be recovered. The times this would happen were when I was doing somewhat strenuous hiking or extreme physical labor. Eventually I learned to know my limits and pace myself.
Keeping my personal pace has always been important to me and as I grow older the importance becomes ever greater. If I ever do any more hiking it will not involve overly precarious situations like scrambling up rocky mountainsides. I used to do such things keeping my comfortable pace, but now I'd be afraid of falling. Not that I fall that much, but the agility of younger days seems to be less apparent to my body. My mind wants to do things, but my body knows better.
In my future I can still imagine great things that I could do in those coming years. Succumbing to some idea like getting old--and I mean doddering scarily old--is not in my plans. Maybe I'm not so nimble as I once was, but in reality I was never all that nimble anyway. Like when I went to take tap-dancing lessons when I was twenty-five. The dance teacher kind of indicated that maybe dance wasn't my forte.
In some ways I've always been a bit of a klutz in a physical sense. But I've also always gotten by in life and in most cases gotten by just fine. And thus I will continue. My next prize awaits me all aglow in the future. I'm heading that way and keeping my pace.
Do you stress yourself out trying to get things done? What is the biggest thing that hinders you from achieving your goals? How do you manage the pace of your life?
