I went running after work yesterday on already sore knees, and within half a mile, I had to stop.  The hills hurt too much.  I walked until I found a relatively flat route, and then put in almost two miles before I had to quit altogether.  I walked the rest of the distance home, arriving drenched in sweat and on the verge of angry sobs.  I hate feeling out of control.  I hate that I might not be able to do my first 10K in two weeks.  I hate that I have to admit that something might actually be wrong with my knees.  I turned the fan on full bore and stood in front of it in my sports bra, feeling terribly sorry for myself.

And then I read this:

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Rob Brezsny’s Astrology Newsletter – May 26, 2010

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): You’re not living in Iraq or Sudan or the Congo, and you don’t have to walk five miles a day with a jug on your head to fetch the water you need, and you’re not so bereft of food that you have to resort to eating worms and tree bark. So how bad could your problems be? The single best thing you can do to start fixing your life’s small glitches is to feel waves of gratitude for how many resources you have and how lucky you are. The second best thing would be to aggressively take your worried attention off yourself and turn your mind toward people who could really benefit from your help. As you carry out those two assignments, your dilemmas will begin to solve themselves as if by magic.

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I want my life to be full of the sort of grace that comes from aggressively taking my worried attention off myself, and turning my mind toward others.