Priorities

I have been thinking a lot about priorities lately. This is odd for me because it means that I have more than one thing going on in my life. I never aspired to this. In fact, I had been hoping I might have no priorities, no responsibilities, but plenty of money. Instead I am a counselor. Oh Well!
You might ask: What does this have to do with running. Well, I am finding that all of my other priorities get in the way of my running. My job, my wife, my family, this newsletter: all can (and do) get in the way of my running at times. Case in point: I had every intention of running the Midwinter 10 Miler a few weeks ago, but instead found myself attending my mother in law’s birthday party in Skowhegan. Now I’m not complaining (After all, priorities can also be used as excuses). I’m just not sure how I got here.
When I was younger, my priority was running. That was it. That was pretty much my life. Everything else took a back seat and that’s the way that I liked it. My job was chosen based on running. I became a teacher so that I could coach track. Nearly all of my friends were runners and I would let very little disrupt my running schedule. I even skipped my college graduation to run a road race (I think I finished third). If you had asked me about priorities then, I wouldn’t have known what you were talking about. Running was not only what I did, it was who I was. I didn’t even know that something was missing in my life.
The something that was missing was balance. As I have gotten older I have allowed other things into my life. I focused on my career and became a counselor. I focused on finding a relationship and met my wife. I have found other interests to fill my time, like making teddy bears. Through all of this I have held on to running, but today running does not define me, it is just a part of my definition. It is a priority, but does not often take first place. At times other things take a higher priority. Today I run for health and fitness, for socialization, and to satisfy my competitiveness. I am still working on which of these is my priority.