Yesterday, in a dilemma, I parked outside the gym; I wanted to run and lift but also despised running on the treadmill. Gonna have to save the run for another day this week, I thought. Then, an obvious solution appeared: I can run outside, then lift. And that I did, a mile down the sidewalk and back. Simple enough. All fresh air and no treadmill.
This example is dumb. Nothing profound, but as a literal representation of what I discussed with a friend one year ago, it’s important and at that time was anything but trivial.
Between patients, I nearly crashed into a fellow resident exiting the clinic bathroom. This was common, I, not surprised, as this frequented area served as restroom and catch-up zone. We quickly reviewed the status of our post-residency opportunities, both interested in a part-time gig. Less was more, part-time was go-time. This opposed what our friends sought, most seeking the highest paying, full-time job. I concluded our two-minute rendezvous with an idea I’d heard Zubin Damania (Z Dogg MD) preach, “You must get off the medicine treadmill.”
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As I stared out across a medicine career, I saw the same scenery; a never-ending gauntlet of patient care, charting, and billing, without change, which for me, was not what I wanted. Something was clear: this treadmill will run forever and only stop, if I get off. I am the only person who can stop it. I could feel my fifty-year-old self doing the exact same things, asking the exact same questions, and feeling the exact same frustrations.
Treadmill livin’.
Six months into life off the treadmill, I endorse running outside, only. Here’s why:
You cannot understand what you want or who you are until you stop running in place.
The busyness of my life, then, was tantalizing because responsibility was deferred. All those hours on the treadmill, seemingly helpful and technically exercise, were stalling me in place. All that work ground me down without taking me closer to who I hoped to be. My daily life was a dance that kept the audience entertained while someone got strangled behind the curtains. To save that guy, the dance had the stop. The time was ripe for an urgent pull on the treadmill’s emergency stop cord.
I pulled that red cord after graduation, briefly, during a designed, six-week break before the start of my part-time gig. The grip around my throat loosened. I slept a lot. The grind stopped. And I really laughed again. Parts of myself, returned, for the first time in years. I’d removed the but from my life, no qualifiers. But you must give credit where credit’s due; the treadmill is a convenient exercise solution.
As I started that part-time gig, the laughs lessened as the grip around my throat returned. The begrudging but was back. Though with the speed turned down, I was back on that damn treadmill, going nowhere. So, I hopped back off. And sold it. For free. Dumped it on the street.
Still, I stay ready because that treadmill will be back. Without consistent, unrelenting attention to aliveness, we find ourselves back running on a rubber spinning mat and watching Family Feud reruns, when we’d rather be running trails.
Should I run on the treadmill or outside? Every. Single. Day. That’s my choice. Directionality, of which I choose, is the reason I run outside, toward what I want.
(Photo Caption: Sometimes you think you’re off the treadmill, but you’re not. There I stood—one month into med school and thinkingly free—as the rubber spun beneath me. Courtesy of Red Dirt Ruminations.)
