And if Life is Not a Race?

I am, like most people, a wounded being. I am the culmination of what I have seen, what I have been told, and what I have taken up as my own belief. This week, I've spoken to a couple different people who were telling me that I could definitely stand to be a little more risky in my behaviour. I have lived life as though it was a race, a race where all of my opponents were me, but if just one me slowed, bent over, or looked back, and fell behind, we'd all lose. I'd lose. I am thankful for the people in my life who don't judge me nearly as harshly as I judge myself.

I've come to reject that mindset in the last few years, but obviously by my friends' commentary, there is still some residue of that way of thinking in my behaviour. I've been wondering lately what life is like, if not a race? I've come up with two possible alternatives - life is either an obstacle course or an Easter egg hunt. The most common place I can think of that uses obstacle courses as a serious part of training is in the military, and at a really important point of a soldier/military person's career as well - new recruit training. A young militia gets the experience of obstacle course training where their superior tells them to get through all the various obstacles (each presenting a unique sort of challenge) all the while being timed. Unlike a race, the point of an obstacle course is not to get to the finish line, but to have overcome all the obstacles. Similarly, an Easter egg hunt involves locating a number of hidden treats throughout a designated area. You can finish before or after other people who were in the hunt, yes, but the real value of an Easter egg hunt is having found as many treats as possible at the end - a basket full, if all goes well.

Or perhaps it could be both, at the same time

I really like thinking of life as both the obstacle course and the Easter egg hunt. Each obstacle is good training for what is to come in the future. My goal is to master my obstacles, the things that challenge me, and  maybe even frighten me - if I can overcome them now, the next time I encounter them I'll know what to do, and my body will be prepared. I also want to be the kid with the basket who's having a good ole time running ten miles away from everyone else to check out a thatch of grass over to the left there. I want to get the eggs no one even thought to look for. My basket's going to get full too, because quirky Aunty Selma who hid those eggs is a very, very independent thinker, and she hid these eggs in bizarre and outlandish places, just for the me's in the hunt.  

So, if life stopped being a race, a desperate sprint of energy, hopefully just enough to get you over the finish line, then what would it become, and how would that change things? For me, the change is that the target moves from the end to all the little parts of now. For me, I am looking for those obstacles to overcome and the treats to collect. Over the next rope ladder could be a dark chocolate, Lindt egg <drools>. I want to make sure that I am touching every part of the life that I have. I really want to know that at the end of my life, there aren't things that I just overlooked because I was too busy hustling through to notice. Life becomes a constantly happening thing, where the goals are not in the distance, but right here, staring at me, and I become active in what is happening now. I must take ownership of life and responsibility to look around, to see and to experience. 

This is my life, and I put my mark on it.

Source