“How fast can you run?” Do you remember how important that question was in grade school? I’m sure many of you have not been asked that question in a long time. But truthfully, we need to ask ourselves that question more often.
“How fast can you run?” does define many of our lives. As children, how fast we could run was based on our athletic abilities and desires to push ourselves. The same was with climbing, jumping, and holding our breath. We wanted to push our limits!
As adults though, our answer to this question many times tends to be: “It’s according to what is chasing me.” We may not say that answer, but many of our lives reflect that answer. We “run” just fast enough to stay ahead of bill collectors. We “run” just fast enough to avoid job termination. Unfortunately, many of us “run” just fast enough to avoid divorce. We have found our steady pace in life (which tends to be in line with the friends and associates we choose) and “run” through life with a “half-hearted” effort.
But…… just like a cheetah stalking a gazelle on the African plains, most of the things “chasing us” in adulthood sneak up on us before we have time to increase our pace. This happens with past due notices, fights with our spouse over insignificant issues, and reprimands at work. Many times we survive these attacks, but sometimes we don’t. Even if we do survive, we are forced to continually look over our shoulder and adjust our pace to what is trying to catch us. This takes energy and focus from our life which destroys drive, ambition, and happiness.
Why do we set the pace of our lives trying to avoid negative events?
“How fast can you run?” Have you ever figured that out as an adult? Have you ever stopped looking over your shoulder, looked forward with determination and drive, and given your all? When you do this, an amazing thing happens. Everything in your life, positive and negative, friend or enemy, will have to adjust their pace to keep up with you. You will lie down at night knowing that on that day, you gave it everything. Today, you were in control.
I believe the people who have realized this are the people who are creative, empowering, and demonstrate control in their life. Why? Because we tend to pace our life and measure our success by them. They are the Olympic athletes, the sports stars, the writers, the successful businessmen and women who did not look over their shoulder to see how close they were to being caught by failure. They simply ran as fast as they could…
How fast can you run?
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