Running For Your Life in Spike Heels

Never give up; you never know until you try.

It's 90 degrees outside, with 70 percent humidity.  You feel as if you're a Thanksgiving turkey roasting in the oven, yet the moist heat nearly suffocates you.  The sun beats down mercilessly as your feet, in pointed-toe, spike-heel shoes a size too small, hit the pavement--right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot . . . Each footfall feels as if someone is trying to pound you into the ground by conking you on the head with a giant hammer.  Searing pain stabs through your whole body, yet you must keep running.  Someone is chasing you with a knife, intent not on killing you, but on ending your life as you know it, making you live in constant physical agony, and the resulting emotional pain, the rest of your days.  You just know that any second now your ankles are going to turn and you'll be facedown on the nearly bubbling, griddle-hot asphalt, moments away from feeling the sharp knife rip into your flesh.  You're screaming for help, but none comes.  Those who hear you look at you, pity on their faces, shaking their heads as they yell, "I'm sorry, but I don't know what I can do."

A friend shared something with me the other day, and I knew, in part, exactly where she was coming from.  She has been in a situation that has required her to do something completely out of her comfort zone, her interests, and her training.  She has been trying to make the best of it, but she is essentially forcing a square peg into a round hole.  In short, she's miserable, trying desperately to find a way out of her predicament.

Many of us have been where she is.  We've been in relationships that meant compromising our desires and/or beliefs.  We've worked in jobs that meant the same thing.  I think it's happening more now, with the slumping economy; many people have taken jobs they hate, or that don't pay enough, just to have money coming in.

(Understatement alert) Those situations are never easy, and they're never fun.  I've written before about how frustrating and painful it is trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, but my friend's situation, and ones I've been in, can be much worse.  They can seem more like the above scenario or even, if they're ongoing situations, like being forced to run a 10 k race, on asphalt, in too-small, pointed-toe, spike-heel shoes in full sunshine when it's 90 degrees with 70 percent humidity.

What I've done when faced with unspeakably painful circumstances was to keep going, "running" through the pain, groping for a way out until I found one.  I yelled for help, even when the only help available was people  encouraging me to keep going.  That's basically what I shared with my friend.  I listened, empathizing, and offered a few possible options. 

It sucks, but sometimes the reality is that we just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other until we get to a better place.