Why Running Away Is Sometimes The Strongest Thing You Can Do

Why is “running” perceived as a bad thing? A weak thing?

I am not referring to cardio. I am referring to running away from your problems, cutting your losses, leaving and all the other clichés that come down to changing your story by changing your environment.

I once had someone say to me that “running away is the same thing as standing still.”

Why is our society obsessed with the mentality that our problems will never go away unless we face them? Or that it we are better people for doing so?

I am a runner. Not literally, god no, I prefer the elliptical. But that’s beside the point. I run. Not when things get tough because I can’t take it anymore. Not because I don’t have the ability to stay and face my problems or life’s hurdles. I run when I have had enough and I do not HAVE to stay and take it anymore.

Friendships end. Places stop feeling like home. Jobs are shitty. Relationships and breakups are shittier. I don’t think the person who chooses to stay and endure is any stronger than a runner. A runner just doesn’t wait around for these things to get better.

Another popular cliché – sorry there are so many – “time heals everything,” maybe true. But why is it true? Because things change over time. It’s not time doing the healing. It’s change.

A runner simply chooses to make changes.

Time feels slow if you are waiting on something. But we do not have much of it. Why wouldn’t we want to race to good parts if we can get there faster?

I am a runner. I will always be a runner. I choose to make changes and I will do everything in my power to work on myself and my happiness. And I am in no way standing still.