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Route 80 eastbound, 7 a.m. Sunday, somewhere around Montville, N.J.

One of the people I most respect is my boss at my last job. He’s a 40-year veteran of the newspaper business who got his start in the industry during the Vietnam War, following around the Army officers who told mothers and wives that their sons and husbands had died. His job was, immediately thereafter, to get information from them for an obituary and, oh, did they happen to have a photograph?

He’s seen every story in the world, from money-laundering, organ-selling rabbis to gay Americans, and is never surprised. By anything. It’s awesome.

Anyway, I bring up my boss because, as far as I can tell, last year was one of the worst years of his life. In about eight months he left his job, started a new company, had to go to court for a family member, suffered a stroke, and had someone die accidentally on his property. It would have been funny if it weren’t gruesomely tragic.

But to look at the guy, you wouldn’t know it. He sighed a little louder some days and was less quick to lavish praise on stories (“It’s fine.”), but he still smiled, joked, and talked about his dog as if life were as pleasant as always. Because I’m bad with boundaries, I asked him how he did it.

“Happiness is a choice,” he said.

The past week for me has presented a number of challenging situations that have elicited responses ranging from pouting to foot-stomping to catatonic bed rest (although that last one was just a cold, for which I think bed rest is the best response). It’s not the worst week of my life by far, but it’s not been awesome. In the whole range of things, it gets a B-.

But here’s the thing: I don’t like being in a B- mood, and you can bet your bottom dollar that no one likes being around my B- mood either. So my thoughts have drifted back to my boss, who said he had learned (albeit after years of work) to let his mood be independent of the shitstorm around him. This doesn’t necessarily mean being positive about things that are patently negative (or just not so hot). I think it means that if you try hard enough, you can make yourself be happy, no matter what is going on outside.

It’s hard work!

But here’s how it translated into one of the most sub-mediocre running weeks of recent memory:

Friday I ran about seven miles in bucolic Glen Ridge, N.J. Four miles into the out-and-back run I realized that I did NOT feel well. At all. Unfortunately, I was three miles away from my car. This was unfortunate. Lacking any recourse, I cranked up my iPod (New York Times Popcast!) and slowed it down.

“At least I ran!” I told myself, before collapsing into bed.

Saturday I did homework inside Starbucks. I didn’t run. I didn’t cross train. This is unusual for me. But I did write two lesson plans.

Sunday found me in Central Park, still congested, with a post-power hour Megan. What could have been 14 miles of misery turned into 14 slow miles of excellent conversation, tinged with a few “Ughhhhhs.” But very pleasant ughs.

All very dull stuff. But sometimes boring isn’t a bad thing. Sometimes it gets you back on track.

And now, because this is far too ponderous for my liking, a video. If you run in the New York/New Jersey area, you might have seen “Sergio.” He is a middle-aged Colombian dude who runs without a shirt. He is a character. A few years ago, someone took a cell phone picture of him dancing.