12/30/2020
This is my year end review. It's been a wild ride, hasn't it?
Here's one of the biggest conclusions I've reached. Life is a marathon, like a 25km marathon. When you run a marathon you train, you build endurance, and you learn the intricacies of your strengths and weaknesses. You have to force yourself to be mindful, you pace yourself with a view to the overall race, and you keep to the plan.
We didn't have the luxury of preparing for COVID: we were forced into a high-paced race without training. We're tired and we're scared we don't have what we need to make it to the finish line. We don't know even know where the finish line is!!
So let's slow our pace for a few days. Let's remember to be a bit more mindful of what our choices today, tomorrow and next week could mean 10 days down the road.
Let's take a breath and reorient ourselves to where we are right now in this marathon. We're pretty sure we're on the right course and we've stumbled a few times, but we're still going. We don't know if we have 6 or10 more months of this pace.
So let's cut ourselves, those around us, and those making the decisions some slack. Let's not pretend a finish line is in sight (it could be an exhaustion-induced vision!). Let's not set ourselves up for greater disappointment, when we need to conserve our energy.
Let's focus on the next 500 meters of the marathon. We don't need to be first across the line, we just need to finish.
Keep on keeping on!!
And my thoughts go out to those of us who have a loved one, a friend, a coworker, or a neighbour who is no longer running the marathon. Their absence is painful, but I think they're cheering from the sideline.