Welcome to another fresh start Mondays, where we change the narrative… life happens, we all know this. Sometimes, we struggle with our best efforts not yielding the fruit that we would like. Today, I would like to encourage us all to accept what is, though it is deemed bad in our eyes until it becomes better.
Unfortunate things will happen, even really bad things will happen, how we respond is of paramount importance. Life can be thought of as cycles. We will experience good, bad and indifferent. It is, therefore, imperative, for us to be able to weather the bad until it becomes something good.
Many of us are in the stage of life where we are raising our children, caring for relatives all while trying to grow our careers, acquiring assets, building wealth and even attending school… all at the same time. Will the journey be easy? No! Let us stop for a moment to think of what would happen if we give up versus if we should hold our ground.
Resilience can be thought of as the ability of an individual to recover from difficulties. How resilient are we? Are we ready to walk away as soon as it becomes difficult? Or are we able to set our face like a flint and get what needs to be done, done?
We are living in challenging times, things are constantly changing, hence, it is important for us to grow in resilience. Often times, we quit while we are ahead because at that present moment the finish line is not in sight. Yet, we have no idea of how far or near the finish line really is. Imagine you are running the race of life, but in this instance, let us call it a marathon. You have always been preparing because you knew that one day the time would come when you would have to get up and run. Yet it is a race not for the swift, but those who can endure it.
“If you enter a race and not determined to win, you are simply entering for the experience and not the prize, for if you aim for the prize, you will have the drive to give of your very best.”
Clayton Hamilton
Now imagine it’s race day, spectators turned out to cheer you on, to offer words of encouragement and motivation, because they themselves cannot participate as this is your race. You started out strong but quickly realize that it is much more demanding than what you had trained for. Will you quit or will you push on? You feel the cramp in your muscles with every stride you make, you know that this is a 15KM marathon but you are unfamiliar with the route. As a matter of fact, what makes it even worst is that you are not even a good judge of distance. Yet you are leading the pack, determined to finished first. You have been pushing but cannot see the finish line and just then decided to give up. The other participants ran and around the corner. To your surprise you heard loud celebration and ran to investigate only to find out, that the finish line was just some meters away around the corner that you couldn’t see. How would you feel? What would you do?
Say, you quit, and in that hesitant moment someone else came and acquired the reward you were working for. I’m sure no one wants to do all the work and as soon as you give in, someone comes, does little to nothing extra, then gets the reward.
We have to maintain our will and drive to succeed, show resilience through our race in life. We should run our race to the end never giving up, despite being unable to see the finish line due to obstacles in our way.
Let us, therefore, run our race and change our narrative…
