HOW TOXIC POSITIVITY AGGRAVATED ONE OF MY WORST EXPERIENCES
Spring 2025
|Runner's World US
RECENTLY, I SUCKED. As soon as I started to run the 2024 New Balance 5th Avenue Mile in New York City, I lost my breath.
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I didn't even make it through two blocks before I had to slow down, then watch the backs of other runners fade away. I spent so much time walking that I was reduced to nothing but my own worst thoughts: How embarrassed I was. How out of shape. How I have no friends, my life has no meaning, and my running is never going to improve.
Did I spiral? Well, yes, of course I did! It took me 13 minutes to walk a mile.
A few days later, looking for some running advice, I told a coach with whom I'm friendly about how badly I felt. In response to my sadness, she said, "But you did great!" Now, in case you need a reminder, "great" means "considerably above or better than average." In my head and at that moment, there was no reality-based metric in which I had done "great."
The one person who responded appropriately to my suckiness was the young spectator who shouted at me while I walked my long mile during the race, "Hey! You're better than me!" because she was merely standing still. That stranger made me feel better than the run coach did.
Why, I wondered, do some people insist on being cheerful in response to another person's sadness?
هذه القصة من طبعة Spring 2025 من Runner's World US.
اشترك في Magzter GOLD للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة، وأكثر من 9000 مجلة وصحيفة.
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