Ten Minutes

In one of my classes, our Professor has asked us to write a little “slice of life” entry here and there and just share some normal, everyday stuff. She told us if we had a blog, we could just do it on our blog. As she said that, I remembered –I have a blog. A blog that has remained rather lifeless for a few months… maybe eighteen or so…

Sometimes you look at your life and wonder how you get to where you are, and you kind of know, but at the same time you just think, “What the heck happened?” You find yourself in a world that used to be really familiar –it was your world. But now it is like another planet, and they aren’t the aliens –you are. You find yourself following routines that used to be “normal,” and as you follow these routines you receive a few flashbacks of the past. These flashbacks force you to recognize that the situation isn’t weird –you are.

“You can do anything for ten minutes,” my mother informed me as we continued our training down the canyon. I am not sure what mile we were on in this particular run- but after all the training and sweating (and hating), I knew the end goal -26.2 miles –and the rest often blended together.  Once you run a marathon and people find out about that, they inevitably ask, “so, are you going to do it again?” An innocent question, but in my head I always think “been there, done that,” while I diplomatically respond, “Well, it was a really great experience, but I am not sure I am willing to dedicate that much time to training again.” Though I am not overanxious to repeat the event, I did learn that very valuable lesson:  You can do anything for ten minutes.

Not only can you do anything for ten minutes, but you can also do it for the ten minutes after that, and after that… You know what they say (and by “they” I really mean the scriptures), diligence wins the prize.

“You can do anything for ten minutes” has been a sort-of mantra, a reminder for me in many moments –through high school drama and the panic of freshman year. Through the stress of grades and finals week, and, most recently, through my mission. As I was biking or walking (sometimes running) through adverse  elements I would just remind myself, “You can do anything for ten minutes.”

I have found that phrase coming often to my mind this first week and a half of school- “Tara, you can do anything for ten minutes.” The encouraging reminder that big goals and projects can be broken down, that most battles are just battles of endurance.  All of that good stuff. And also the reminder that I didn’t always love running –sometimes I was really slow (you can just ask my mom), sometimes I had the flu and still ran 7 miles, sometimes we did a 20-miler in St. George before a family reunion and we ran the same street three times, sometimes I studied chemistry while I ran. But sometimes, I listened to great music. Sometimes running felt good and I wasn't slow. Sometimes I even wanted to keep going. (No specific memories of that last one actually come to mind, but it is possible). And in the end, that stuff doesn't even matter that much, because I RAN A MARATHON. 

As I look at the road I have mapped for the next year or so, I have this tendency to get really overwhelmed. I reach for a bag, but instead grab a book because I'm in the library. And no bag is going to solve these problems! Instead I just remind myself “ten minutes.” Or as Kris Kringle taught the Winter Warlock, “You just put one foot in front of the other…”

So though I am sometimes not really sure how I got myself to this point, or what “this point” really means… I know that “you can do anything for ten minutes.”