{"id":9072,"date":"2014-08-22T15:13:54","date_gmt":"2014-08-22T19:13:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/?p=9072"},"modified":"2014-08-22T15:13:54","modified_gmt":"2014-08-22T19:13:54","slug":"marathons-half-marathons-and-the-enemy-of-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/08\/marathons-half-marathons-and-the-enemy-of-good.html","title":{"rendered":"marathons, half-marathons and the enemy of good"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_9073\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9073\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/files\/2014\/08\/poetry-marathon-2014.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-9073\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/239\/2014\/08\/poetry-marathon-2014-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"Poetry Marathon 2014\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-9073\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Poetry Marathon 2014<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>I&#8217;m doing a half-marathon tomorrow. Working HARD for hours. And now that I have you thinking what a sleek athlete I must be, I&#8217;ll confess: it&#8217;s a poetry half-marathon. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p>The<a href=\"http:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/\" target=\"_blank\"> Poetry Marathon 2014<\/a> (24 poem\/ 24 hours) also has a half-marathon option. That would be me. Even at 18 I wasn&#8217;t much for all-nighters. 24 hours?? I&#8217;ll be quite happy to crank out half that many poems, in half that amount of waking time!<\/p>\n<p>Every so often, we need to s-t-r-e-t-c-h ourselves in what we love. For me, that would be writing. Especially poetry. So I signed up for a half-marathon writing poetry. Fun idea, and harder than it sounds, as it usually takes me hours to do just one poem. Tomorrow, I&#8217;ll have one hour PER poem. So much for perfection.<\/p>\n<p>You know that saying, right? <em>Perfect is the enemy of good. <\/em>It;s been <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Perfect_is_the_enemy_of_good\" target=\"_blank\">attributed to <\/a>sages as diverse as Confucius &amp; Voltaire. And for me, it&#8217;s bang-on right. It was years ago that I realised (finally!) that when I try to make ANYTHING perfect, it usually doesn&#8217;t get done&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>So tomorrow is my foray into Nike land: <em>just do it.<\/em> I&#8217;m recommending you try that, as well. Think of something you love, and just do it. Which probably sounds totally contradictory to &#8216;stretching,&#8217; right?<\/p>\n<p>Wrong. The hardest thing in the world is to confront your own learning curve. It&#8217;s also the only way to grow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m doing a half-marathon tomorrow. Working HARD for hours. And now that I have you thinking what a sleek athlete I must be, I&#8217;ll confess: it&#8217;s a poetry half-marathon. \ud83d\ude42 The Poetry Marathon 2014 (24 poem\/ 24 hours) also has a half-marathon option. That would be me. Even at 18 I wasn&#8217;t much for all-nighters.&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":398,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,58],"tags":[11,1181,1187,262,862,1190,861,1201],"class_list":["post-9072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","category-writing","tag-beginners-heart","tag-britton-gildersleeve","tag-buddhism","tag-buddhist-blogs","tag-learning-curve","tag-poetry","tag-poetry-marathon","tag-writing"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>marathons, half-marathons and the enemy of good - Beginner&#039;s Heart<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I&#039;m doing a half-marathon tomorrow. Working HARD for hours. And now that I have you thinking what a sleek athlete I must be, I&#039;ll confess: it&#039;s a poetry\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/08\/marathons-half-marathons-and-the-enemy-of-good.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"marathons, half-marathons and the enemy of good - Beginner&#039;s Heart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I&#039;m doing a half-marathon tomorrow. Working HARD for hours. And now that I have you thinking what a sleek athlete I must be, I&#039;ll confess: it&#039;s a poetry\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/08\/marathons-half-marathons-and-the-enemy-of-good.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beginner&#039;s Heart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-08-22T19:13:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/files\/2014\/08\/poetry-marathon-2014-300x225.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Britton Gildersleeve\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"marathons, half-marathons and the enemy of good - Beginner&#039;s Heart","description":"I'm doing a half-marathon tomorrow. Working HARD for hours. And now that I have you thinking what a sleek athlete I must be, I'll confess: it's a poetry","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/08\/marathons-half-marathons-and-the-enemy-of-good.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"marathons, half-marathons and the enemy of good - Beginner&#039;s Heart","og_description":"I'm doing a half-marathon tomorrow. Working HARD for hours. And now that I have you thinking what a sleek athlete I must be, I'll confess: it's a poetry","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/08\/marathons-half-marathons-and-the-enemy-of-good.html","og_site_name":"Beginner&#039;s Heart","article_published_time":"2014-08-22T19:13:54+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/files\/2014\/08\/poetry-marathon-2014-300x225.jpg"}],"author":"Britton Gildersleeve","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/08\/marathons-half-marathons-and-the-enemy-of-good.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/08\/marathons-half-marathons-and-the-enemy-of-good.html","name":"marathons, half-marathons and the enemy of good - Beginner&#039;s Heart","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/08\/marathons-half-marathons-and-the-enemy-of-good.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/08\/marathons-half-marathons-and-the-enemy-of-good.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/files\/2014\/08\/poetry-marathon-2014-300x225.jpg","datePublished":"2014-08-22T19:13:54+00:00","dateModified":"2014-08-22T19:13:54+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#\/schema\/person\/b4348bfbe2223c0ec325db830aa95f52"},"description":"I'm doing a half-marathon tomorrow. Working HARD for hours. And now that I have you thinking what a sleek athlete I must be, I'll confess: it's a poetry","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/08\/marathons-half-marathons-and-the-enemy-of-good.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/08\/marathons-half-marathons-and-the-enemy-of-good.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/08\/marathons-half-marathons-and-the-enemy-of-good.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/files\/2014\/08\/poetry-marathon-2014-300x225.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/files\/2014\/08\/poetry-marathon-2014-300x225.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/08\/marathons-half-marathons-and-the-enemy-of-good.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"marathons, half-marathons and the enemy of good"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/","name":"Beginner&#039;s Heart","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Britton Gildersleeve","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#\/schema\/person\/b4348bfbe2223c0ec325db830aa95f52","name":"Britton Gildersleeve","description":"Britton Gildersleeve is a 'third culture kid.' Years spent living on the margins - in places with exotic names and food shortages - have left her with a visceral response to folks \u2018without,\u2019 as well as a desire to live her Buddhism in an engaged fashion. She\u2019s a writer and a teacher, the former director of a federal non-profit for teachers who write. She believes that if we talk to each other, we can learn to love each other (but she's still learning how). And she believes in tea. She is (still) working on her beginner's heart ~","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/author\/brittongildersleeve"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/398"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9072"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9076,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9072\/revisions\/9076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}