Do You Give In Or Just Give Up?

While I am not an avid marathoner like my co-blogger Jeremy is, I have managed to work myself up to 5 miles and am striving for more.

Running doesn’t come easy to me but I just run slow and blast the tunes to keep my feet pounding the pavement.

Yesterday, I didn’t feel like running but I forced myself to put my sneakers on and go. At 4 miles, the thought of stopping to walk passed into my head.

Oh, how desirable this sounded!

However, instead of slowing down, I told myself I’ve worked hard enough and must keep running. So I did. And I reached my goal.

As I pushed through this desire to give up, I realized that sometimes there are things we decide to work toward that may not be as fun as we’d prefer, but we have found value in what we’re doing and the hard work we’ve already put into it, therefore we keep pushing past.

And, sometimes, we choose to give up.

In the situations where we give up, are we really losing out or is it really something that we just flat out don’t want to do because it has no value to us? How do we determine that? Do we need to shift our perspective or keep trying at everything, no matter what? What’s the right thing to do?

Or perhaps, if it’s something we really want to do, for most of us, we’ll just do it.

I’ve been questioning my reactions to negative situations lately and even had a “WWDD” (What would Doug (Sandler) do) moment:

When faced with a negative situation, do we need to reconsider our perspective on it and keep shifting it until we find positivity or can we just look at something for what it is–a really negative situation, accept it, do something about it (in the cases where we have control) and move on with our lives?

Sometimes, the acceptance of the situation, at least those for which we have no control over (minus the way we react) is more powerful and fulfilling. We’re able to just…move forward. Keep running, even if slowly, toward our goal.

So, what do we do? How many shifts in perspective can we put on a situation? Or, are those just bandaids for the truth?

This post is mainly just me blabbing about how confused I am with this topic–so your insight is appreciated! Thanks for reading.

[custom_author=jenny]