I found myself thinking recently about that piece of advice: If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
What brought that to mind is knee pain among Type A personalities, with whom I share some traits. They tend to be organized, competitive, ambitious.
In cases where they take part in some sport or form of exercise, they do so with more dedication and energy, and that can get them into trouble.
When they find themselves with knee pain, I imagine that many try to do what I did: work around it, deny it, assume it will just go away with a little time and with only minor changes to their workout routine.
Essentially, they've found themselves in a hole, then they keep digging it deeper. At some point, if they're self-aware enough, they realize what's happening and they modify their behavior.
To beat knee pain, Type A and more laidback Type B personalities may need wildly different approaches.
For Type B people with knee pain, the best course of action may be get moving and do more. For Type A people, it may be to do less, to ease up, and that can be a harder prescription to follow for those who are accustomed to putting out maximum effort.
I remember in Hong Kong, trying again and again to ride my bike without getting that awful burning in my knees, and I could never do it. So finally I just told myself: That's it. I am through cycling for now, and maybe forever.
That was really, really tough. But sometimes I think that, to overcome chronic knee pain, the only way you can return to doing what you love is by being willing to abandon it forever.
It's a hard lesson that a lot of Type A people with knee pain learn: A lot of furious, motivated digging just leaves you at the bottom of a bigger hole.
