The Glimmering Finish Line.
This past November I found myself wrangling a twenty foot tall inflatable tunnel that was desperate to free itself from my grip and fly away into the grey Outer Banks sky. There was a bite in the air and the wind was gusting. It took six of us to tame the tunnel. Two of us held it down from the front with straps. Two of us bared our weight from behind to keep it from wiggling away and the final two had the responsibility of attaching a sign to the tunnel, a sign that had one of the most rewarding words you could possibly read. FINISH.
I’ve crossed under many of these inflatable finish lines in my life but this time I got to see It from the other side. I was recruited to greet runners at the finish line. As they came through I clapped for them. I encouraged them and I congratulated them. Runners of all different shapes and sizes and different ages and genders ran underneath that tunnel. For the first time as a bystander I was able to see the full gambit of emotions and reactions:
Wide eyed smiles.
The glow of triumph.
The agony of exhaustion
The sweet rush of releif.
And that unforgettable feeling of simply finishing.
At the finish line, you can’t hide your true self and when you pass through that inflatable tunnel you know exactly who you are and how far you’ve come. All the things you sacrificed, the time you put in, the old habits you discarded fade into history. Because when you cross the finish line, the old you is extinct and you finally get to see the tangible truth that is the new you. But finish lines are not easy to get to.
Do you remember where you started? Think back. Do you remember those New Years resolutions you made a year ago? A week ago? A month? Did you have an idea in your head about what would be different this year?
If your lucky, you may have made good on at least one resolution of the many that you set for yourself. You were determined. You were inspired and you dug deep. You hung on through the tough times. You succeeded. How did that make you feel to reach the finish line?
Resolutions, like that inflatable tunnel that we tussled with, are hard to pin down. The new year rolls around and we have fresh ambitions. Something deep inside of us wrestles to be free. In our minds, we see a future that is better than the present. An excitement and indeterable feeling of determination wells up in our gut. We aim for changes, big or small, that will make us better, stronger, shinier. But what is it that we want to change? How hard will it be? How much do we want to bite off and how much can we chew?
Most resolutions fail because we can’t see the finish line in its complete form. We see change in the distance, a fuzzy image that our mind concocts. The finish line is like a mirage, glimmering at the other end of a vast divide.
We are here. It is there.
Attainable yet so far away.
We’ll have to work for it, sweat for it, sacrifice for it.
Although the finish line is far away it is not impossible to get to. We have to remember that the finish line is a destination. Change happens during the journey, somewhere in that great divide that is in between the here and there. And like that inflatable finish line tunnel, the new us struggles to be free from its restraints of the old us.
So let it go.
Dream. Work. Fly.
Where is your finish line?