Treadmills

I was speaking on the phone with Snowflake last night and we were discussing - okay, perhaps grumbling - about the various loads of what we have going on in our lives, how our work feels overwhelming and not productive and everything else in our lives seems to be coming down the pike all at once.  "It is like we're on a treadmill and we can't get off" she noted.

We laughed, both acknowledging the truth of her statement.  At the same time, there was a certain sad truth to situation.

Which got me to thinking:  if it is a treadmill, can't we get off?

The thing about a treadmill is that it is not something we are chained to, as if we were propelling an slave galley.  We put ourselves on there.  We continue to plod along mile after mile, maybe elevating the track or creating greater speed.  Ultimately, of course, we go nowhere - but we are the ones who continue to keep ourselves on it.

Can one even change treadmills?  This is a question fraught with even larger implications.  Changing a life is not nearly as clean as changing a treadmill of course:  there are a great many more implications than simply powering down and moving over.  But implications are not the same as impossibilities.

To start, as I think about it, is to simply check if one is on a treadmill.  Is my life essentially standing still?  Have I stopped moving forward in important aspects of my life, and am now simply creating ruts?  Have I become so enmeshed by everything that I have lost the ability to independently choose and act if I needed to make a change?

If that is the case - and it seems like my own - then there are really only two choices.  One is to continue to pound away the miles, going nowhere.

The second is to power down, hop off, and walk through the door into the open sunshine.