Turning "Can't" Into "Can"

Why yes, I AM wearing a moustache

At a point that seems like forever ago but was probably somewhere closer to 6 months ago, my friend tweeted about wanting to do the Color Run. I replied that it looked insanely fun but that my bad knee prevented me from running. Not just now, but forever and always.

After some back and forths with my friend and some research on the Color Run, I realized that the run is extremely non-competitive and that they don't care if you walk. Or cartwheel. Or crawl. It's about getting covered in paint, not racing. So I collected a team, waited a few more months, and finally, this past Saturday, went to the far reaches of Brooklyn, decked in white and ready to more or less become a rainbow.

My whole team was planning on walking, but when we were released from the starting line we were so full of adrenaline that we all broke into a jog. We all kind of looked around at each other and said, "Are we doing this?" I said I would run as long as my knee held up. Since I sometimes get shooting pains in my leg just from darting across the street to avoid getting hit by cars, I didn't think I would last too long.

3.1 miles later we jogged across the finish line covered in pink, purple, yellow, orange and green, having taken a few brief walking breaks to take pictures, collect lost teammates, or lay down in the paint to make sure our backs were fully covered.

My knee felt...fine. Sure, it's pretty swollen now so I probably won't go running ever again (or at least not until the next Color Run), but that's not the point.

The point, friends, is that the last time I ran 3 miles was in 2005. The reason I stopped running is because I was in ridiculous amounts of pain and went to see my knee doctor, who reminded me that my ACL/MCL surgery in 1999 left me with no cartilage in my knee and "Do not run, at all, ever. Unless you absolutely have to. And don't take stairs. If there's an escalator, use it. Otherwise you're going to get arthritis before you turn 30." So I listened. I don't run and I don't take stairs. And in the 7 years since then I've just grown accustomed to the thought that running is something that I absolutely cannot do.

While the pain I'm in right now reminds me that running is clearly something I SHOULDN'T do, using "can't" as the operative word is just flat out incorrect. I CAN run. And there's a big difference between saying that something isn't a great idea and saying that something is flat out impossible. Because while I realize that 3 miles isn't exactly a long distance, if you had asked me before this race whether or not my knee would hold up for that duration I would have told you with 100% certainty that it would not.

This makes me wonder about what other negative stories I've told myself over the years - ways in which I've convinced myself that I'm incapable or not good enough, when in fact this may not be true at all.

I remember one specific incident in February of this year. I scored some free tickets to a pre-Superbowl party sponsored by Maxim. I was pretty excited to get comped entry to a party with OPEN BAR, but I was also not really looking forward to all the hot Maxim models that would be running around. The friend I took with me to the party thought I was being ridiculous for saying that I wasn't hot enough to go to an event like this, but I truly believed that to be the case.

Obviously I WAS being ridiculous. Because first of all, that night would probably go in my top ten most fun nights out I've had in New York ever, and second of all, WHAT THE FUCK. Like, who makes these horrible self-deprecating comments about themselves?

I think what I've realized is that I need to stop with the whole negative self-talk. It isn't doing me any favors because no one finds self-deprecation all that attractive unless you're doing it for comedy (like Tina Fey in Bossypants - genius).

There are going to be a crapload of people that are going to bring you down. Maybe your significant other doesn't treat you as well as you deserve, maybe your coworker is trying to make you look bad in front of your boss. Plenty of people in life will tell you you aren't good enough.

Don't be one of them.

**This is my new series called Stratejoy Monday. To learn more about all this goodness, see the first 5 months of my Stratejoy journey here.