Meaningless and yet priceless

If I manage to run my daily mile for the next 20 days, I will have reached the milestone of running at least a mile every day for 4 years, or 1,461 consecutive days.

I say it's a milestone because it feels like it's one. I also say "If I manage", because I don't take anything for granted. I realise that every day that I'm able to run is a gift, and I am lucky just to be able to do it.

Why does the 4-year mark feel significant?

I'm not entirely sure. Is it because 4 years is the gap between each Olympics or football Word Cups. Does that make it significant? Probably not. It all depends on perspective.

Examining it from a different perspective, it's far less impressive than if my 89-year-old mother were to decide to, and then actually, run half a mile now, having never really run at all before.

Taking another perspective, would a Kenyan or an Ethiopian child who runs 6 miles barefoot to school and the same home again every day, be impressed by the fact that I've run a mile every day for 4 years?

I think not.

So in and of itself my 1,461 days are nothing special, you could say meaningless.

Human beings are masters at attaching meaning to actions that have no meaning in and of themselves. 

So if it's meaningless, is it worthless?

Although it's meaningless, if it serves to inspire me, or someone else, to push past barriers that are currently holding us back in our lives, then it has value.

If it gives me a sense of pride that I've challanged myself on a daily basis to go out and run even when I didn't feel like it, which in turn makes me feel I'm capable of other things, then it's worth it's weight in gold.

I have never regretted going out for a run after I've done it. I can't remember a time when I haven't felt better having done it, no matter what time of day it was or how tired I was.

If attitude is everything in life, which I believe it is, once again my daily runs have massive value.

They say that life begins at the end of your comfort zone, and my morning mile drags me out of my comfort zone, particularly when it's followed by a cold shower.

Every day when I do it, it makes me feel really really alive.

You could say it's meaningless, and yet priceless.