Mountains and Mole Hills

It is so easy for me to get lost in the big picture.
I feel the pressure and the obligation of looming deadlines and future events. So much so, that I begin to feel like the weight of the world is pressing down on my shoulders and the days are crushed underneath all of my future obligations, so that they collapse into sharp pebbled-rocks under my feet. I do not remember days, enjoyable in their beginnings and their endings, simply, intermittent pangs and sharp reminders of what is to come.
Running keeps me grounded. Everyday I am challenged.
I can not get lost in the pressure of the big picture, when I know that my biggest challenge of the day will comes early in the morning on the treadmill.
Running turns those pebbles into mountains. I am no longer on a path of sharp rocks, a means to an end, where the finish is always in sight but never reached. Rather, I am climbing mountains. Every morning I am reaching goals, and setting new personal bests, and I am making my way through each day, not at the whim of the sharp reminders of the future, but by the joy of scaling small mountains.