As if. Yep, As if.
I started reading a book titled "The As If Principle" by Richard Wiseman a couple of weeks back. I'll be honest, I have only read the first chapter or so but I have to say that it has already had a profound influence on my thought process. Maybe this means I am weak minded? Although I prefer to believe I am open minded.
Anyway, the primary tenent seems to be that if you embrace the physical aspects of an emotion, then you will feel that emotion. This is subtely different than pretending you feel an emotion until you actually feel it. This is the "plaster the smile physically on your face until you feel happy". I'm sure I am not paraphrasing this well at all (sorry Richard).
I had a chance to try this out a few weeks ago at a trail race in Appleton WI. This was a 50 k loop relay where each member did a 7.7 mile loop. I was runner number 4 (technically number 3 because we had a psychotic runer who wanted to do two loops...bless him). This was a patched together debacle of a team trying to fix the complete meltdown of a 4 person team of which only one member (not the captain) remained. I ran as a favor to a friend of a friend. I don't really do trail races and I didn't really need this on my plate while I was trying to get ready for the big event.
But off I went at the butt crack of dawn to drive 2.5 hours to the race start. About an hour out it began to rain. And rain. And rain harder. And continue to rain. On top of the night's worth of rain they had already gotten.
I found my recently elected team captain almost by accident. We awaited our team mate finishing his second loop and chatted. None of us were thrilled and I began to longingly dream of a fleeting hamstring injury. No such luck, he was in and she was off and the wait for the last loop began.
Tick tock, tick tock. I actually got to spend a bit of time talking with the psychotic team member that ran the first two loops. Turns out he wasn't psychotic at all but rather nice. With a pair of kids and a nice wife to boot.
Given the fact that we were well out of the medals and that others had done it, I was encouraged to head off for my loop before my other team member came in. Conditions, it seemed, were deteriorating rapidly. Off I went. The next 7.7 miles were completely and totally awful.
Except that they really weren't.
By mile two I had already stepped multiple times into water that was cold and mid-shin deep. By mile three I had already slid down a hill of slick mud and nearly crashed into a tree. Within the next mile I would summit a hill only to slide all the way back down. My crankiness was up and my mood was seriously down. This had all the makings of a disaster and I intended to wallow in the horribleness of it.
And then...As If came to mind. What could it hurt to try? Other than missing an opportunity to be a snarling grouch at the end, I didn't really see a downside here. It isn't as if (ha ha) I don't have other opportunities in life to be grumpy. So I plastered that smile on, smiled and said hi to everyone I saw and forced myself to giggle through every water-logged and mud coated section (trust me, there were many).
And an amazing thing happened. By mile 4 I WAS smiling and laughing and outright giggling. I thought of the times when I was a kid and my mother would yell at me for getting dirty and wet in the all too common spring rains and floods. And it occurred to me at some point in time that I was doing something I had always been told not to do. And that, my friends, made it genuinely fun.
I finished my loop in a not great, but respectable time. Laughing and gigling the entire last half. I was filthy, exhausted, drenched and starving. The recently appointed team captain met me at the finish line and rather quickly asked me if I would do it again and without even batting an eyelash I enthusiastically and loudly said "Hell Yes!!".
As if they could stop me.... :)
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