Objects in mirror are larger than they appear

March 10, 2025

The Spare Room

Total Miles: none yet

Josh Ritter on my headphones

Only a few weeks out, now. Countable days. In some ways, it feels even bigger and further away than it did a year ago, and I’m not as ready as I imagined I would be. I'm worried that I haven’t trained enough, lost enough weight, done enough short hikes. I’m worried about trail conditions after last year’s hurricane, about all these government funding and staffing cuts and what they mean for outdoor spaces and trail maintenance. I’m worried that the time and thought and prep I’ve put in are not enough; that I am not enough. And I may very well not be. Ready or not, though, these feelings would probably be hanging here with me–these feelings, which, as a matter of pure perspective, make total sense.  

The idea of a thing scales both ways. When it’s the very next thing, right in front of me, it pulls at my attention in a way that can feel so much bigger, so much heavier, than the thing itself. Perception of a thing’s size, the weight of its burden, is impacted both by its immediacy and by the level of uncertainty (or dread) attached to it.

This, perhaps, is why procrastination is so compelling. Choosing not to get into a thing, to eliminate that uncertainty by putting it off, sending it ahead in time, makes a thing smaller, less scary, more doable, if only by virtue of giving me the illusion of more time to work. It’s a mind trick I set for myself–and fall for–far too often.

I fall for it even as I know that once I’m in a thing, the weight of uncertainty lightens. I have an actual size, for better or worse. Something to deal with, or work towards, or process, sure—but somehow lighter all the same. 

I know that right now, the enormity of this trip weighs heavier than it will once I get started. Starting is the hurdle; it may indeed suck in all kinds of ways, ways I haven’t even considered once I’m in it, but fear and uncertainty are the heaviest burdens right now, and the most dangerous. Waiting until I feel completely ‘ready’ won’t remove that uncertainty, or prove that I’m actually as ready as I believe myself to be. It doesn’t change the actual size or scope of what I intend to do. All it changes is the size of the idea on some internal horizon.