Today in fast and testimony meeting, one of the bishopric was talking about adversity, and how we all face it, and what we do about it, and so on. Later on, I was talking to a friend who's facing some recurring health problems that could have some unpleasant long term effects. She mentioned that she'd been watching a show that had several people who are experiencing even worse problems than she is. As she watched it, she thought "What am I complaining about? There's people out there who have it way worse than I do." So, despite the fact that she is facing some pretty major stuff, she's choosing not to let it get her down.
Interestingly, I had a similar epiphany this week. I've been very frustrated about the shinsplints I keep getting (fairly consistently for the past 7 or 8 years, despite doing everything that's supposed to minimize their occurrence) and how it limits my training and mileage. I read an article in this month's Runner's World about a man who got smooshed by a bus. He was a firefighter who had done a couple triathlons and a marathon and was biking to work when a bus made an illegal turn on top of him. He got stuck underneath, tangled in his bike. He had massive internal trauma and lots of broken bones. 40 operations later, one leg is two inches shorter than the other, and he has a titanium rod in the longer one. He had to re-learn how to walk, and made it a goal to run the NYC marathon. He did, and though it took more than twice the time it took the first time he ran it before his accident, and he was in a lot of pain, he finished it. How can shinsplints compare with that? If he can go through everything he did, I really can't complain.
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