Running Marathons and Other Things I Can't Do

Ever run a marathon? It's okay. I haven't either. But they make me think of goals. And not because I think you need goals to get better at running, although I'm sure that's true. It's because of Geometry. I know, at this point you're probably thinking, "And what the who does Geometry have to do with running marathons?"

Well, I'll tell you.

Sophomore year of high school, my Geometry teacher announced that he was going to run a Marathon in the spring. And why did he tell everyone this? (Me, I'd keep that stuff to myself, so I wouldn't have to tell everyone when I was an abysmal failure.) He told us all, because he knew that if he had 150 kids who could, at any time, say, "Hey, Mr. M, how's the marathon coming?" he'd feel more compelled to keep training. Because he wouldn't want to have to admit to having given it up.

I'm sure there's someone really cynical thinking, "Oh my goshness, just lie to the fricking high schooler. They'll never know." But sometimes the lying thing just gets old. And so we rely on good old fashioned guilt to keep us motivated.

I think you can all guess where I'm heading with this.

That's why I'm always yammering about my goals on the blog. Because once I've posted my goal, I feel more compelled to meet it. Yeah, I don't expect any of you to actually say, "Hey, have you been limiting your Blogger checks to only twice a day?" because, after all, you guys aren't desperately trying to fill five minutes before the bell rings, but I feel like I've made a promise, like I've made myself accountable to someone. And I am good at doing work when I am accountable to someone.

So while I'll probably never run a marathon, I might just get one step closer to fulfilling my bigger dreams as a writer. And I'll probably do it by posting about goals on the blog.

How about you guys? What keeps you motivated?