Can't We All Just Get Along?

*****Warning this Post is heavy in cumbaya, if you have an aversion to cumbaya, perhaps you shouldn't read this post****

As humans we live by labeling things, good, bad, dangerous, delicious, exciting, disgusting. And by extenuation we label everyone She's tall, fat, brown hair, Democrat, home wrecker, a good friend. He's short, conservative, athletic, passionate, plays the field. Some labels are hard not to use, because of course as we are human beings we categorize everything we come across as to ensure our long term survival. However it seems to me that people are relying on assigning labels to people, places, politics, situations more and more. What's worse making sure they are keeping like with like and not venturing past a very restrictive comfort zone.  Now perhaps this is the way the world has always been and I'm just now taking the rose colored glasses off. But I choose not to believe that.

For the past year I have had the pleasure of working with an amazing person. Married, Christian, conservative, went to seminary school instead of college. Me, single (living in sin), agnostic, liberal went to a very liberal liberal arts school.  On the surface it seems we had nothing in common and would butt heads a lot. But then we dared to do something crazy. Get to know one another. And he loves 311 even more than I do! We both enjoyed singing corny songs in the store. And above all else we both share a core belief that love is the ultimate guide to life. And while we steered clear of topics that we both knew that we didn't see eye to eye on we still admired each other and appreciated where the other person was coming form. He proved to be the best ally I had in the store this past year.

I do believe that our world as the advances in communication is  bringing us together, it is also tearing us apart. We now know in a nanosecond what took us days, sometimes months to find out. Where it took time for us to process and then act accordingly is taking minutes, hours. As a cause of this we label quicker and with much more haste.  I also believe, especially in the United States where we are a bicameral democracy, we have been trained to see things as yes/no, black/white, republican/democrat. But is that really life? Isn't life more of a spectrum, sure you need yin and yang to balance, but living and dying by yes/no?

The question begs to be asked then. How do we change our ways? And can we really see past the labels we assume and get to the core of a person? Place? Situation? And more locally what can I do? What will I do? Or is this the new normal and I am just now being terribly old-fashioned? I hope not. My mom is old-fashioned, not me. I choose to believe if we try, and I mean really try, we can see past the labels we assign and perhaps greater tolerance can be achieved.

See I told you this was a cumbaya post.  And in the immortal words of the now late Rodney King, "can't we all just get along?" Seems so simple.

To Run or not to Run

I am not a runner. In fact, a few weeks ago if you ever saw me run, your best bet would be to start running too. I had a million and one excuses not to run, its too cold, too hot, don't have enough time, I'll ruin my knees, I could get hypothermia, I don't have the right bra, its too hilly, I might pass out and get robbed, I was even worried about how I looked when I ran, I envision me running to look something akin to Phoebe from Friends running. You know that episode where Rachel ditches Phoebe because she's such an embarrassment?

One day the excuses seemed old and worn out. What if I just tried? I really hadn't run since high school soccer. We moved closer to the lake and I could run on flat land with no hills (one excuse knocked out).  I was looking for a new challenge, a challenge just for me to conquer. The inner dialogue looked something like this: Running. No, not running, I'll ruin my knees. No really, give running a chance. I can't run my boobs will flop all over the place. Then I went on Amazon and bought a very expensive pair of cross-trainers that I couldn't justify have just sit in my closet. With the shoes delivered the inner dialogue still raged. One day at Target I found the perfect running bra, bright, almost neon pink, totally obnoxious and totally what I needed as inspiration. That's when I knew I had found my challenge. By the end of the summer be able to run from my house to Seward Park--it is an almost all flat route and a totally attainable goal (+/- 4 miles).

And then it dawned one me in my many years of excuse making I didn't once consider the benefits. A great cardiovascular work-out, a great stress reliever, instant energy booster, builds endurance, and last but not least a feeling of accomplishment every-time I am finished with a run, because I have cheated my excuses one more time.