Me running the KY Derby Festival half-marathon, 2008
Last week I saw a clip on America’s Funniest Videos that showed a little girl walking along looking behind her at something. The Dad was saying “Watch where you’re going” but, of course, the girl didn’t look ahead and consequently toppled to the ground when she fell over a toy. She got back up and proceeded to do the very same thing again – walking forward while looking backward as the Dad again said “Watch where you’re going!” Sure enough, she fell down when she tripped over the next toy.
Kids are prone to doing that. We’ve all observed it. The problem is that we as adults are also a little too prone to looking behind us in life so much that we miss the target of where we should be heading.
Here are some ways we trip ourselves up by failing to run the race before us:
- We spend too much time worrying about things in the past that cannot be changed.
- We fail to set goals for the future.
- We allow others to determine what races consume our time.
- We look behind us too often to see if others are gaining on us, more concerned about beating them than just doing our best.
- We run off course because we tend to devote our energy to whatever direction we’re facing, whether or not it’s the right direction.
- We lose focus on what is most important by allowing constant detours and distractions to interrupt forward progress.
- We try to maintain a status quo or even live in the past, thereby assuring ourselves of never really finishing any race, preferring maintenance to progress.
It’s right and good to know where we have been, to know our past and to learn from it. But it is woefully inadequate as a human being with a wealth of potential to fail to enter, compete, and complete ambitious life races that can bring meaning to our lives and to the lives of others.
I encourage you to make sure that there is a clear race before you, to keep your focus on that path, and to run the race before you – not the one behind you.
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