Introspection

Here’s a question: is reading a magazine in a store with zero intention of buying it stealing? I picked up a running magazine in Publix because it had three articles that I found interesting. One was on running barefoot, which was just a novelty to me. I can’t realistically run barefoot where I run. The ghetto ain’t a meadow (Nipsey!!) The second one was about pre-run stretching, also a novelty to me because I don’t do it. I don’t have time to warm up, stretch, and then run. I ease into my runs, my first mile routinely being my slowest, so that’s my warm up. The third article made me wish I had a photographic memory and made me wonder whether a magazine is the paper and ink or the information. I thought about buying it, but they were asking $4.99 for a 75 page mag that was 40% ads. Is you crazy?!? I’m not paying that, so I tried to memorize a twelve page article with charts, and I’m a little bit pissed that I’ve forgotten a lot of it. Since I was in Publix there wasn’t the weird and awkward pressure like there is in a convenience store, but I was still rationalizing about how much money I spend in the grocery store so I was justified in not buying the magazine, and how I was being environmentally responsible by not buying it. I wished I had a scanner or an unlimited data plan because I would have been emailing myself the whole magazine – minus the ads. The article I wanted was about specifically training for a 5k. Some of it was stuff that I’d heard before – time based training instead of distance based – but I’d never thought about training specifically for a 5k road race. It had a great training schedule, which I’ve forgotten, and so I’ll have to go back to Publix tomorrow with a note pad. I guess it’s not a moral question for me as much as it is a philosophical one. I learn something new about myself everyday.