Monday, June 4, 2018

The Race

This weekend I had the opportunity to support one of my best friends as she ran a marathon. This experience was completely inspiring to me. Part way through her race, she started feeling incredible pain in her legs, particularly her left one. Now, my friend is a runner. She's been running for years, and is no stranger to hard races, but this was worse than what she experienced in other races. Yet, she did not stop. She did not give up. Instead, she kept going until she reached the finish line. The last couple of miles, she couldn't run anymore, so she walked - until the very end, when she was within sight of the finish line and she started running again. I was - and still am - in complete awe of her, for doing what she did. It is nothing less than amazing, and as I have reflected back on watching her race, there have been two thoughts that have been repeating themselves.

The first was inspired from Angela Duckworth's book Grit. I finished reading it on Friday, and one of the last things I wrote in it - I was jotting down notes as I read it - was "Failure does not define you. You define failure."

The second is something that was said at a session of stake conference I attended as a missionary. It was a member of the Seventy, and he said something to the effect of, "Goals are not necessarily meant to be reached. They are meant for us to work towards something," explaining that just because you didn't reach a goal does not mean that you did not fulfill the purpose of the goal.

My friend didn't accomplish one of her goals, within the race. To me, that is completely irrelevant. Why? Because she did literally everything within her power to accomplish her goal and to do her best. Often, we will not be able to control everything we encounter as we work towards out goals. We cannot anticipate every bump in the road. Just like my friend who started feeling excruciating pain, which inhibited her ability to run how she normally could. Her capacities were decreased, but that did not mean she put forth any less effort. For me, to say that she failed would be an utter falsehood. To some, maybe to the world looking from the outside, she failed. Luckily for us, we do not have to abide by the world's standard of failure, Rather, we can look at what we accomplished, not at what we lacked. We will always be lacking. We will always be missing something. So, instead, we should focus on what we have accomplished. Did you do your best? Did you do everything within your power? Did you learn something and grow? Then, you did not fail.

Sometimes not reaching your goal allows you to understand your limits. Sometimes not finishing something the way that you wanted to or were hoping to is an opportunity for growth. You can see what you did well and what you need to improve on. The only failure that is true failure is not putting forth the effort. It's not choosing to act. It's not using the agency that you have been given, the power and gifts that you have to accomplish something.

You're not going to reach every goal that you set for yourself. But, that's not the point of a goal. The point of a goal is to do. If you are acting, growing, working towards the goal, then who cares if you didn't actually accomplish it?? If your goal is a 4.0 GPA, but you only get a 3.95, but you worked diligently for that 3.95, you shouldn't beat yourself up or think your degree is any less valid.

So, the moral of the story? Failure is not when you do not reach your goals. Failure is choosing to not act in full force. You do not have to accomplish your goals to accomplish what you need to. I mean, God intends for us to be perfect, but no matter how hard I try to do that, I'm not going to accomplish perfection within the year. And that's okay.

So, go do a thing. Try to do something incredible. Chase your dreams. And if you don't reach it? Celebrate where it took you - and then do it again.

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