Trial of Miles: Practicing Forbearance
When Forrest and I started dating, he recommended a book to me called Once a Runner by John L. Parker, Jr. Forrest was a long distance runner and he thought it would be an interesting insight for me into the mind of someone who had devoted hours of their life to incremental improvements meant to shave 30 seconds off a 10k. It was fascinating look at running (and also rural Florida, to be honest) but the thing that’s stuck with me was a line the runners would repeat to each other when they didn’t want to go out training. “Trial of miles; miles of trials.” What that meant was that any success they had would be built on the back of thousands of days of practice. There was no way to get good except to just show up and do the work.
I think about this often; in writing, in community building, in parenting, in life. We need to show up in the small moments so that we are ready for the big moments. Some days, I am so hurt and so angry that I don’t know if I can ever let go of that pain. But then I remember forbearance and the trial of miles that will help me be able to set aside my rights to keep connection, regardless of my pain.
So how do we practice forbearance? It’s all about the small moments. For me, the first thing to do was to start paying less attention. I, like many people, have a bad habit of keeping a little scoreboard in my mind. It’s not specific down to each act, but I notice if I host more often, or cook more often, or get insulted and, saint-like, let it go. I needed to start selectively forgetting.
Part of that selective forgetting was making sure that I remembered that I am rude, abrasive and forgetful far often that I notice. Hopefully my friends are doing some selective forgetting of their own. I know Forrest and the girls do. Another part of that was a change in behavior – one led by pursuing generosity. Instead of asking, “Who cooked last time?” I started asking “Is there a reason I can’t cook?” If there was, fine, no worries. But if not, I leaned into doing the kind thing not to keep score but to kill that thing within myself that thought scorekeeping had any place in my life.
As I began to practice letting go of “fair,” my change of behavior started to change my thinking. It became easier to let go of my rights when I was well and truly offended. After all, I’d been learning to yield to others’ needs in the small things. I am committed to connection first, understanding that no amount of forgiveness will rebuild a relationship if I’ve allowed it to become decrepit while I dealt with my own complex emotions.
As always, a caveat. I get to choose which connections I want to keep alive and what pain I set aside. No one can tell me how and when I get to forbear. Forced forbearance builds bitterness or a sense of superiority, both of which are connection destroying. But if I want to have the choice to forbear in big moments, I have to learn how to practice it in small moments.
How can you practice setting aside your rights? How have you been able to do that in big moments?
