“All extremes of feeling are allied with madness.”― Virginia Woolf
When obsession meets habit, one question crosses its mind. “Do I have what it takes?” Feeding the pathological need to ace it in one or many spheres of our lives can result in a painful collapse when the demands we put onto ourselves fail to keep up with this unhealthy standard of perfection we aim toward. Habits are hard to break especially because they have comfortably found their place and thus reason to be in the confines of our own mind. Refusing to trust our emotional guidance that has perhaps sent us one or multiple signals that something is wrong, we fall deeper into the depths of danger.
The universe will let us know that we ought to change our ways, but if we choose to ignore his calls and look the other way, we’ll soon enough be put in a position where we’re forced to make a change. Life being very generous in that regard, if we don’t get it right the first time, she’ll make sure to keep on sending us punctual reminders to push us to get our act straight next time around.
Slowly drifting from passion to obsession, the running maniac in me has been running away from the all too important task of self-introspection. Having reached a point where my body shut down on me, I was faced with no other option but to figure out what led me here. Examining the “why” that underlies our every action is an imperative step to take in order to find out what made us reach unhealthy lengths on the continuum of obsession. Since consciousness is the reflection of awareness, we ought to open our minds to figure out why we’ve let ourselves down. “Why am I running?” Because I love to run.
How paradoxical can it be that the love one has for running turn into a love to run toward complete exhaustion? Obsession too often meets habit when there’s a disruption in the application of kindness to the self. Don’t ask an ultra-marathoner why they might put their health at risk for the sake of preserving it. Logic is nowhere to be found when obsession lurks around.