Running less than a marathon in the middle of a government shutdown

Big news; I was able to finish running 10 miles this week in a local run. It wasn’t easy, I almost dropped out because the humidity was so high I felt at times that I would not be able to finish. But like the other thousand participants, I kept going. At times, I sped up, and at times my jog was no faster than a stroll.

It was my third time in this race and the weather made the run extremely difficult. I felt buckets of perspiration pouring out as I ran, which has a huge psychological effect on you as well. I inched along and finally I finished, and it felt great. Painful, but great.

I guess the real big news this weekend wasn’t the race, but the government shut down. In fact, while I was running, I overheard a government employee discussing her paycheck or lack thereof. But the government has reopened and now it’s back to business as usual, right?

I don’t right about politics much, and as a reporter, I hate it when people bash the media, but I have been annoyed by the many headlines touting the Republican’s loss. It annoyed me because I think always framing political debates in terms of winners and losers hurts us in the long run. The criticism of making politics into some sort of sports competition is nothing new. In fact, this opinion was widely articulated in the last presidential election. But I would say when we use it to describe conflicts in Congress, it does even great damage. The incentive to compromise is lost because you don’t want to be the loser. Losers don’t win primary elections. In the game of politics there is no tie, only winners and losers. So the budget battles and debt ceiling are reduced to little games, replayed every couple of months.

Here’s my suggestion. If we have to use a sports analogy, why don’t we compare it to a marathon. In marathons there are no losers. I mean of course, it is a competition, and people do win. But for the majority of people, they are not running to win first place. People are running to reach their goal. For a select few, that is getting first. For some, it is beating their own personal best record and for others it is just finishing. Besides the most elite runners, if someone else reaches their goal, it does not mean I failed at reaching mine.