When you don’t feel like what you are

I just went on a run. I did not feel like a runner. I felt more like one of those wooden figures artists use to pose a body shape. My legs felt wooden. I had to work to get them to move. It wasn’t fun. 

Before I went on a run, I was writing a blog. I did not feel like a writer. I felt more like an idiot. The ideas were not flowing. Everything seemed stupid. I wrote and deleted sentences, then wrote and deleted them again. 

Both these feelings are ironic. This was my 35th run of the year. I’ve run 140 miles so far this year. I ran a half marathon in under two hours last month. I ran a full marathon last year, along the way to running over 500 miles on the year. I’m written almost 900 blogs on my website. I’ve been published in Business Insider and Forbes. I published a book last year. I’m working on my next one. 

I tell you this to make the point that some days you just don’t feel like it. I am a runner and a writer. But today, I didn’t feel like either one. 

We have no trouble believing that a car can get us where we need to go. We have no issue believing that a dishwasher will clean our dishes, even though both these things intermittently fail. Cars break down. So do dishwashers. They spit out refuse and byproduct. They need repairs and oil changes and part swaps. We never lose faith in the identity of these things, but we’re so quick to lose faith in ourselves. 

Maybe we’re not so different. Keep believing.