Tick, tick tick...

My entire adult life has been ruled by clocks. 

Alarm clocks getting me up for school and work, microwave clocks marking the time until dinner's ready, newsroom clocks ticking off the minutes until deadline. 

And now, with running, the obsession continues. 

I need to keep track of distances on some days, but mostly I need to keep track of how much time I spend running (today it had to be 30-35 minutes). So I'm constantly monitoring my watch, and it's confirmed something I learned years ago. 

Time is just a great big mind game. 

Thirty-five minutes of running feels like 90 on some days and 25 on others. Same thing for trying to get things done before children come home from school (how does four hours dissolve into 20 minutes?), and getting things done at work (when four hours became 30 seconds in an eye-blink). 

The clock and I weren't always good friends at work, but we reached an understanding -- as long as I was going forward, time stayed with me. And after a while, I stopped obsessing about it. I knew I was making progress, and that gradually diminished my clock-watching. 

I'm slowly learning that it's the same thing whether you're trying to finish a project at work, potty train a toddler or finally make it to the top of the hill you're running on. Stop looking at the minute hand sweeping around, or the digital seconds ticking away.

Just keep moving forward.