AN EVENTUAL END OF EVERYTHING

I was out running the day before yesterday.  It was one of those running days when, if I was independently wealthy and it was humanly possible to gain the physical benefits from someone else running for you, I would have paid someone to run my 4 miles for me.  I just didn't want to do it.  Now, I do believe that our attitude determines greatly how much enjoyment or grit we have for any given thing in front of us.  Running included.  I didn't have any.  Probably compared to most, I have a great deal of self discipline and drive.  I can push through things that are hard.  I have staying power.  Before you think I am great and mighty (ok, go ahead and think it!), really I am wired this way.  I don't necessarily read books on the subject of self-discipline and grit.  It comes relatively easy for me.  Likewise someone who has the IQ of say 160 is just wired that way.  Which, by the way, has now created a desire in me to take an IQ test.  I am hoping to get an average score of 100.  Then again, maybe I shouldn't take the test.  What if I don't score that high and I am shattered over my false sense of intelligence?    Back to running :)  I am out running, not because I want to but because I know it's good for me.  Because I want the results that are garnered from it.  I am on the last mile.  Struggling to finish, let alone finish strong, I start this dialogue in my head.  Ok Nancy, you can do anything that you know has a start and a stop.  You can endure winter knowing it will last at its harshest only about 3 months.  You can run a 7.5 minute mile because you know you can eventually stop.  Now, you have one more mile left.  Run the mile, damn it!  If you never want to run again, you don't HAVE to, but you are going to finish this run.   That's how I talked myself into finishing something that I had no desire to do.  I break it down in minutes sometimes.  That is how I endured several years of extreme pain.  I would break the clock down.  My daughter, then in high school, would leave for school at 7:45 a.m.  I would look at the clock and tell myself every hour I could do the next hour.  That I only had to do that hour.  When it came and went, that's how I got through the next hour.  I feel the same way when I bite off a home improvement project that is bigger than me.  Especially toward the end of one.  When I was single, I decided to paint my dining room, living and entryway which involved moving all the furniture by myself.  It is a huge area to paint by yourself, especially if you are not a professional painter.  Since I have OCD as well:), I had 2 coats of paint on the ceiling, two coats on the wall, two trim coats on the baseboard, 5 door frames with 2 coats of paint and 3 windows trimmed with two coats of paint.  Toward the end of it all, I was behind myself pushing myself to finish.  I had a similar talk with myself that I had a couple days ago on my run.  There was an end to the paint eventually.  There was the end sight of my driveway eventually from that run.  Today, the first large snowfall came.  As my husband and I went out to shovel, I told myself the same thing, You can do this for 3 months.  No big deal.  The snow will leave eventually.