Whenever I stop running regularly, getting back is always difficult. I keep postponing the starting line, I keep telling myself that today is not a very good day — it’s cold (or hot), I haven’t had enough sleep, or I don’t have enough time. Which can be true, and yet getting back on track gets harder and harder.

I don’t remember a single run that I wasn’t happy I did. Not a single time when I had to kick myself out of the door, I regretted. So why is starting anew is so damn difficult? Inertia. When you run, you just do. When you don’t run — same thing, you don’t. And it’s not that easy to switch from not running to running. That’s why all the coaches of this world say that once you get to the starting line, you’re halfway there. And that’s also why all the couches of this world attract us, the ready couch potatoes that would rather do something static than running.

In terms of slogans and trademarks, it’s really hard to beat “just do it” — because that’s what it boils down to, I’m sorry it’s too corporate, but that’s just what the company did, they took the common sense, and the only thing that works, and made it theirs. The reality is — you will only know it was a right thing to do AFTER you’ve done it. After the run. After the sun in your eyes (next time I’ll even remember to put on sunscreen), or a refreshing drizzle on your face. You’ll know if — first when you breathe in the fresh air while your feet start kicking the ground underneath you, and then, when you are taking a shower after the run. You’ll know it then — something that’s impossible to know when you have just woken up and would rather stay in the comfort of your home for the next week thank you.

Most of the time, we think about minimalism as something good. And while on the outside I can feel cluttered, on the inside I’m a devoted minimalist — very fond of the idea.

Let me give you two examples — one where I chose (relative) minimalism, and one where I went with complexity.

My old MacBook got ruined by water almost two years ago, and when after a few days it refused to recognize the hard drive, I put it aside and never touched it since. I didn’t buy a replacement, but instead made it work with an iPad and a keyboard. (I have another MacBook for work.) Yesterday, it turned out that the MacBook was working, and now I have it back. And… I’m not sure that I want it back. A more minimal setup is fine for me, and having a choice of writing this text on a MacBook or on an iPad, I choose the latter. Works better with texts for me — as well as for reading or watching.

A different example.

I’m trying out something that half of the planet threw themselves into when the pandemic was young — making sourdough bread from scratch. I haven’t baked a single loaf yet — but I’ve already spent enough time discarding failed dough starters, and reading up on the topic. There are way simpler ways to get bread. From a bakery fresh and perfect, just a couple of minutes time and a setback of a few euros. Then, if we talk about a hobby, I could make bread with yeast. Another level of complexity up — find someone with a ready starter and ask to share. But I want to try the most complex way of them all, all by myself, all the steps.

These are two different examples of striving for simplicity vs deliberately seeking out complexity. I cannot even compare them (yes, apples and oranges, and even — food and robots). But there are specific different pulls in these two scenarios. One is minimizing the tools, and not keeping this maintenance of gadgets as an additional level. The other is a case of exploration and curiosity. What does it take to make a starter from air, water and flour? What would the dough feel like to the touch? Am I able to handle it? Essentially, what does it take to make a loaf of bread?

While not purely functional, this is the complexity that gives life color.

I’ve been getting into running in the past few weeks. I was starting to run a number of times since last fall, and either it was too cold, or I pushed myself too much, and got exhausted after a minute or two. About a week or so ago, I started running with my phone, and Nike Running Club app, and that’s when I was able to pick up my pace.

The following are my notes after completing the “first run” with NRC. This will not be strictly about running, although as you can see I’m pretty exhilarated by my new discoveries.

I did the “first run” with Nike Running Club app and the “built-in” coach Bennett. Wow, what can I say, it was unexpectedly fantastic. The fantastic part of it being that I could run for twenty minutes without getting out of breath. Although it’s technically not my first run, it still feels like level zero. I ran at the recommended too-easy pace, which ultimately increased my average pace from the one time before when I tracked my run. I didn’t, before. I didn’t want it to feel like a competition yet, I just wanted to enjoy the movement. However, the guidance actually led to better results, and hopefully a better technique in running.

My post-run thoughts, filled with excitement and a bit of pride, were around the word “potential.” How I haven’t felt like I had potential — in anything — in a while. I never thought of myself as someone who would be good at sports. Now, influenced by my morning run, I feel powerful. Able. With potential.

“Not my thing” is being replaced by “I’m actually enjoying it”. And the potential that I’m feeling right now is less about a specific kind of physical achievement, like being able to run a marathon, and much more about potential for enjoying the physical activity. Today’s run was pleasant. It was joyful. It was relaxed. It was — easy, and comfortable.

I missed having potential.

This last sentence stuck with me.

“Potential” is such a young word. The more time you have ahead of you, the less you developed and established yourself in one thing, the more potential you have. As you grow older and gain the eponymous life experience, the more you can feel potential fading away. It develops into skills, or talent, or both, in a few spheres — and drops, naturally, in the rest. You trade your potential for something more tangible, and you cut off some hypothetical roads to build a few real ones.

Whether you feel like you have fully or sufficiently realized your potential in something or not, the sense of having this storage of possibilities is diminishing. Being young, we naturally tap into new territories, because so much is new and so little has already been claimed as ours.

One of, and maybe the biggest appeal of traveling is uncovering fresh potential, venturing out of the constraints of our daily lives and into something else, that could have been ours, if we were born differently or if we wanted to make our home elsewhere. That’s why it’s difficult to endure lockdowns during the pandemic: because our daily activities are limited more than ever before. And even if you’re comfortable with your daily life, there’s less sense of potentiality.

We measure our capacity by seeing new horizons, often by pushing ourself out of the comfort zone, or by being curious about something that hasn’t got our attention before. When we start something new, or see a way to develop a skill or knowledge further, we get excited, it starts getting fun. And eventually, we can think about ourselves in new terms.

I have never thought of myself as “athletic”. Even less so a runner. But when I’m running, that’s what I am — a runner. Whether it’s my first or my fourth run (that I completed a few hours ago). Something that I thought of previously as “not my thing” is becoming a source of joy, energy and some kind of pride for me. This is one of the unexpected places for me where I feel I’m at the starting line (almost too literal to be a metaphor), and have a way ahead of me to look forward to.

Having only recently written about the need to build defences against social narratives, I am aware that I might be sounding now as if I’m preaching for running. In reality: I don’t think everyone should do it; I don’t think I’m even nearly “there yet”, to be talking from a point of view of someone who knows stuff or has achieved anything in running. The only thing that I can claim as an understanding (and hence, an achievement) is the power of potential, and the curiosity about either a completely new activity or interest, or a new cycle of something that you have already claimed as “yours”. It’s important. It’s what makes you feel young and, synonymously, alive.

It happens sometimes, that in our practice, we arrive at ‘a-ha’ moments. Such moments, upon our initial fascination, and upon closer inspection, turn out to be particularly resembling common wisdom. They often belong to the realm of general knowledge.

I have an example in my recent experience, while learning a useless trick of spinning a pen around my thumb. I started by trying a couple of times and failing. Watched gifs and videos and read tutorials. Next time, about ten minutes into practice, failure after failure — I still didn’t learn the trick. But something happened. I had my first aha moment: I realized that I was sending the pen on a wrong trajectory. It was far from the first signs of success. But that was a step ahead. That revelation would not have been possible without the initial practice. Multiple repetitions, without putting any thought into what I was doing, without losing the motivation — that was what got me to that first step on a learning ladder. I wasn’t succeeding, but I was learning something. That’s what kids are good at. And that’s, probably, something that we call “an inner child”, that center of curiosity and readiness to fail, without turning away from the task.

This particular “insight” that I had can be translated into a common-knowledge phrase “practice makes perfect.” So simple, so familiar. But it feels completely different when you arrive at this from your own experience, as something you felt rather than something you overheard. Something that you thought rather than something that you agreed with. And this is what helps us grow. Even if in a questionably useful task of pen spinning.