How astrology has something to do with running

I read something a few years ago that said if you write one page a day, by the end of the year you’ll have a book. That seemed simple enough, so I took it to heart and started writing.

Somedays I would write five pages. Others, I would write none. However, each month, the volume of what I had written increased.

After six months, I had around eighty pages. It wasn’t a book yet. It was just a collection of stories that I had expanded upon from all the journals I had written and saved over the years. It started as a story of my business experience, but ended up being a story about my life. Still, it was far too short to be considered a book anyone would want to read.

Then something strange happened.

My wife introduced me to one of her coworkers who had spent time dabbling in astrology. I quickly became fascinated with his hobby and wanted to learn more about the skills he had developed. Shortly after we were introduced, he asked me if he could do my reading, and I gladly said yes.

After I had provided him my birth sign and a few more details about myself he said, “You’re a writer. You have been writing something important, and you haven’t finished it. You need to finish your story.”

How did he know? He couldn’t. He didn’t.

My wife and I immediately looked at each other—speechless—and after our moment of silence passed, I responded, “I actually have been writing something, and I stopped. I wasn’t sure what the purpose of it was.”

“You need to finish it,” he said again.

And so, I did.

The next day, I went back to what I had written. I took the collection of chapters that I had saved into separate files and outlines how they were connected. Up to this point, I wasn’t sure if there was any flow to it.

Was it really a book?

To my surprise, the stores had a common theme. When I laid them out side-by-side, they followed a chronological order. I was shocked. There was a beginning, middle, and an end.

I compiled all the chapters into one larger file and just like that, my book was born.  

From that point on, for nearly another year, I expanded on the stories that I had written. Little by little. Word by word. Adding more detail, more heart, and more depth. I went deeper and deeper unlocking a level of personal expression I never knew existed.

My story grew from 50,000 words to 85,000.

The most incredible thing is I still remember writing the first word on the first page. Ever book starts with a single word. I really don’t know how they start any other way. It's only after we let go of the anxiety of reaching 85,000 words that we can ever get there.

Similar to running up a mountain. You don’t get there by focusing on the summit. You get there by looking three or five feet in front of you, making sure you don’t trip. Step by step you keep moving forward.

Eventually, when you glace toward the summit, you realize how far you’ve come. Your perspective changes. Then you focus back down on the trail and keep going. Step by step, repeating the process until you reach the top.

The entire journey becomes a beautiful process—for me as a writer and as a runner.

Step by step. Word by word. You reach your summit.

During this process, I learned how to write. Who am I kidding? I am still learning. I don’t think that ever ends.

But I did learn something else—something ever more important:

The book doesn’t end.

What I wrote only captured a specific period of my life about certain events. Each day, I continue writing chapters that might never see the light of day. Maybe those chapters will only be for my eyes and my personal journals I keep them in. Or, maybe not. The story continues through the personal experiences that shape me. The book always goes on.

What does all this mean?

Maybe writing this book is its own form of therapy, a way to process, to heal, to understand. Or maybe this was the reason I started in the first place—to prove something to myself, or to make sense of it all through action and struggle.

I’m beginning to see that the purpose was never just the destination.

It was the story of how I arrived there.

Disclaimer: My blog is written in journal entry form. I write to improve my writing skills. There might be grammatical errors, but that is okay, because I am human. So please forgive me. It’s not perfect, but neither am I.