It's taken me years to realize I don't hate running.
I vividly remember certain wretched summer mornings at Temple Beth Shalom as a child, being trooped outside with the others and commanded to run laps. I remember how I'd lag behind, how my side would hurt, how my throat would burn, how my eyes would sting with tears. How I dreaded having to run! Just as bad were our games of capture-the-flag, when I didn't know whose side I was supposed to be on or how the game was played; I just knew I was supposed to run around--somewhere. Then I remember the occasional sprints in elementary school gym and the five minute runs that began every seventh grade gym class. I was a conscientious girl; I wouldn't outright rebel, but oh, I hated every painful second, made worse by the taunts of my classmates. I had to run when I practiced soccer, too, but we often dribbled our ball as we went, and even when we didn't, I somehow tolerated it, for I would be rewarded with ball-work afterward. But in a choice between soccer and ballet, it was the running that prompted me to choose ballet.
Then came the embarrassingly torturous day in seventh grade when we had to run a mile. A mile! I managed to get once around the track and half-way again, but then I limped, near tears, to the starting line and begged off. My knees hurt with every step, and my throat had closed up so I could scarcely breathe. Soon afterward, I was homeschooled and wasn't forced to run till my freshman year in college. I somehow got through the required mile run in health class--I can't remember it clearly (PTSD, I'm sure), but I suspect I alternately walked and jogged with some of the other lazy girls in the class; I aced every written test, and that was one class I took pass-fail, so it wasn't as if I needed to try to run properly to pass.
Nowadays, I only run when I'm late for work, but not so late I have to drive; I'll run a block or so (when no one's out and about to see me), then walk one or two blocks to catch my breath, run across intersections and another half a block, then catch my breath, and so on until I'm sure I'll reach the college on time. It was this practice of mine, combined with a brief race with my husband during one of our walks in Carey Park, that made me realize the truth: I don't hate running. I hate racing. I hate being left behind.
Or more accurately, I fear it.
It is when I see my friends pulling away from me and am confronted by my horribly slow, inadequate pace that my panic attacks will commence and squeeze my breath from my body and prick my eyes with tears. I still don't like running; I do have to be careful about my knees, and I don't particularly like the feeling when I've pushed too far and my throat feels raw for the next few hours. I would never run--just run--without need, as for exercise, yet I find I appreciate the workout my legs get during my off-and-on runs when I'm late. And, somewhere along the way, I noticed with amazement that I no longer abhored the idea of "running."
Realizing that my "hatred" stemmed from fear, I thought back to timed math tests, another trauma of my childhood; as when running, panic would set in, my brain would lock up, and I'd struggle to keep the flood from my eyes. In the beginning, I think it was more tedious and frustrating than panic-inducing. However, I recall a particular day in sixth grade when my mother came in during the test to talk quietly with Mrs. Clark, and I saw classmate after classmate stand up and turn in their papers, and I wanted so much to be finished and talk with my mom, but here I was embarrassing her by not being able to finish such a simple stupid timed test! I was so embarrassed by my failure--and then by being seen to cry, as if I expected favoritism because my mom was a volunteer! But my problem then stemmed from the same source as racing--a fear of being left behind mingled with mortification. I've found in more recent years that timing my math produces nothing more than concentration and a desire to best my speed, but then, I've not attempted the exercise with anyone faster than I.
My hatred of math in general, on the other hand, stemmed more from frustration than fear. I actually liked math in elementary school--felt proud, in fact, in third grade when I understood fractions so easily, and later I enjoyed long division. I don't even think the timed test incident in sixth grade put me off math entirely. I wasn't very good at it, however, and in seventh grade, I was put in the "stupid" math class with an inadequate teacher who confused me more often than not. Then when homeschooling, I pushed myself to study algebra on my own from books, afraid that I'd fall behind public school students. Some I understood, but when I faced off against Saxon math and Jacobs' Algebra, not even mom's help could elucidate matters, and I often raged, threw my books on the floor, stormed off--in short, displayed my ill temper very inappropriately, and I probably would have been punished for it more frequently if I'd studied in front of my parents, but I often tackled it in my chair in the basement, alone. As it was, my habit of breaking pencils when frustrated has become a bit of a family joke.
After some geometry, Mom finally just had me work through a book on Consumer Math and called that good enough. I still feel a mixture of intense gratitude and a smidgen of regret for that decision; I'd love to be the math whiz that my brother and other acquaintances are. But for better or worse, my skills lie in other directions, and I have generally felt content with the extent of my skill. In college, I got away with logic for my math credit, and my financial class hardly dealt with real math, so I whizzed through just fine. I can balance our checking account, do our taxes, figure out (with a few minutes of mental math or my phone calculator) comparative prices in stores, and estimate lengths of material for art or building projects (not always with accuracy). When I began tutoring, my quick second-grader (now fifth-grader) kept me on my toes, and my basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division skills are now better than ever. However, I felt a little embarrassed when I stopped being able to help his older sister when she reached ninth-grade math. Even the fifth-grade math sometimes baffles me since they're teaching techniques we never used in school--a new, "faster" method of long division, for instance, though I saw nothing wrong with the old system. It doesn't help that the youngster doesn't understand the newfangled ideas well enough to teach them to me, so I can only show him my methods and hope it helps. Fortunately, he needs more help with writing than math.
Returning to the point, my hatred for math has faded as my frustration has faded. Part of that is maturity, and part of that is not being forced to comprehend math beyond my abilities. Thus, I can now treat
it as an interesting puzzle, like sudoku or logic games, and while I
may get frustrated with slow or incorrect answers, I can generally work
through problems without breaking pencils, or if it is
beyond my abilities, hand it over to a mathematician friend. The release of pressure released the hatred.
Why contemplate all this? I'm not at the point where I can extrapolate a solution to the world's hate problems, nor have I even thought so far as to how it relates on a smaller scale to interpersonal hatred or grudges, but it is a start. If we can recognize the true root of our hatred and release that pressure or change that attitude--as far as it is possible--I believe we'll find a better way to control our tempers and learn to be content doing what we previously hated.
Oh, dear. I hope someone won't use that to convince me to try eating mushrooms again. I really hate mushrooms.
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