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To Settle: “To accept something in spite of not being completely satisfied”
Growing up as a runner I’ve learned many things, from Jr. High through college. That being said, there is nothing better than the energy and excitement of being in a race environment. In my head I replay memories from college meets, races I’ve ran well and ones where I struggled. Each one teaching me a lesson, each one helping me grow, each one telling me I was capable of more.
If you have never raced before the concept of running probably doesn’t make sense, but I argue that it makes as much sense as life itself.
It’s race day.
Your heart starts pounding as you try to relax, stepping up to the line before the gun goes off. You take off, most likely harder than you should but you keep telling yourself “I got this.” The energy is high and you go with the pack. Coach is at the 1k encouraging you and telling you that you can hold it. He believes in you. You pass the 2k mark and you feel uncomfortable. Doubt creeping in as you unconsciously start to settle. “If I can just stay at this pace, I’ll be fine” you approach the 3k. Pace even slower than the last. As you settle you don’t realize that you’ve actually slowed down even more, that you are now just going through the motions. Encouragement comes from teammates and coaches, you shove it away “this sucks” coach yells his favorite phrases “new gear” “compete” “find someone to run with” “trust the training” but doubt and pain keeps you from pushing on. “If I pick it up I’ll never make it to the finish” you make it through the 4K just praying you can make it to the finish. You debate finding that new gear but you push it away keeping the pace you settled for. The finish is in sight and you decide to ease into a slightly faster pace debating when you should make the final sprint. You finish with an unsatisfactory time and disappointment.
Looking back at my bad races, I have realized that I settled way too often during my time running cross country, and looking back I can pick out where I also settled in life.
Like running, in life we can choose to settle or we can find that new gear. Often when we are in this state of settling we forget about our team of supporters who root for us no matter how bad we would like to throw in the towel and give up. It’s like during those bad races where we let our supporters’ encouragement roll off our shoulders.
I’ve been out of college for a year and some months now and I can’t even fathom how I’ve done so many things since, yet settling still happened. I worked at the Indianapolis Art Center my first summer out of college, for their summer camp program. I then headed down to Nashville, Indiana to work at CYO Camp for a year, only to find myself this past summer all the way down at YMCA Camp Carson in Princeton, Indiana. (If you haven’t caught on there is a trend.) I love camps, they provide such a positive impact on the younger generations and those who work there. Camp helps you to “Be your best self” and it give me life. The down side to camp is you receive very little free time, you work long hours and a lot of weekends.
So, after this summer, I decided to be responsible. I moved back home and began working at Gecom, a manufacturing plant for car parts, with my mom. If I worked in the factory, I would have afternoons and weekends for fundraising for this mission trip God has called me to. The first couple days weren’t awful, I got placed in an area I worked during one of my summers in college. I drove towards doing my job, but I quickly began to settle. I asked myself daily what I was doing, after all I have a college degree, so how did I end up here?! After a week, I found myself losing energy. My diet was thrown off, I ate little, my mindset was becoming negative. I wasn’t happy. I was far from it. I needed a trail run, but that wasn’t an option, I didn’t have energy to push myself out the door to run more than 6 or so miles a week. I was going through the motions. I stopped “living” and I settled. Work and sleep became the constants of my life. I told myself that this was the most logical option to have money for my college loans when I’m abroad for an entire year. I asked God daily to send me a new job, anything else, but he kept answering with “not yet.” Why not!? I felt put down even more. Before long I was introduced to a new worker in my area and I felt a call say in my heart “this is why” he briefly talked about his life admitting that he’s made a lot of regrets in his life, and wishing me well on my journey. He left and a new person came in. Again I hear “this is why” in my heart. He suffered from more troubles and even a little prison time, but he shared with me his remorse and how he’s been praying to God to help him fix the problems he created.
That was why.
I don’t want to go through the motions of working a job that doesn’t make a difference in this world because we already have a million new cars sitting in lots unused, but God wanted me to experience it. He had a lesson to teach, and I’m still learning. Even though I knew I couldn’t leave the factory right away I still found myself on Facebook during my lunch breaks. Time and time again coming across a link to apply to CYO Camp. They needed more seasonal help, I took it as a sign. So I did a thing, I emailed my old boss and asked for specific dates off and the knowledge that other days may be needed for fundraising. As of current I will now be working at CYO Camp for the rest of this fall! I get to go back to helping kids grow into their best selves and their faith. It’s like a weight being lifted. I felt free.
During the races where I settled, I told myself that I would somehow make it, that it would be worth it in the end. But like those bad races, I was never happy with how I did. I just accepted it, never doing anything to change it. It took me until the end of my junior year of college before I decided to change how I went about my running career, I began to work harder and found a drive. Running became my outlet, I always loved it but it wasn’t until senior year that it became something more. And it paid off. I would find myself actually competing, settling less and less and feeling the strongest and healthiest I’ve ever been.
Now I am working to get back in that state. Back to pushing myself past comfort zones and past doubt and uncertainty, into a happy/ healthy lifestyle. God has called me on this trip, has called me to leave for a year, has called me not to settle but to challenge myself.
Settling drains you. So I encourage you to look into your life, what are you settling for? Are you going through the motions? Don’t settle for less, Make a goal, follow that dream, have faith that God will make it happen when the time is right. Figure out what will make you happy and do it. Reach out, work hard, and strive! I leave you with this quote that I recently came across:
“If we do not settle some things – our goals – then we will have nothing to strive for. If we settle everything too firmly – if we resign ourselves too completely to the world as we find it – we have nothing to strive for, and nothing to live for. ‘Settling’ and ‘striving’ are thus deeply intertwined: we settle some things in order better to strive for others.”
I would Like to dedicate this post to my Franklin Running Family! To Coach Sargent for never giving up on me when I’m sure it was a struggle seeing me settle for worst times than I was capable of running. Thanks for believing in me and helping me excel senior year. To those teammates and families who supported me during our years of running together and now even more so now as I prepare for the World Race. You guys are great and I love you all!
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