Here we all are boys and girls, 2019. A new year filled with any and all possibilities that we care to populate it with. From the depths of winter, we’re all climbing out and on towards the longer days of summer and each and every day gives us the chance to do anything we could imagine.
So the next question we ask of ourselves, are we taking all of the chances we could?
I watched a video clip today of an Arnold Schwarzenegger motivational speech and he was every inch the one man pep tsunami you’d expect him to be but he did talk about making the most of all of the time we have at our disposal rather than just letting life pass us by.
And that’s the wider point which moves this post away from it being simply about resolutions for the new year, most of which fall by the way by the end of January, and instead understand our longer term mentality to who we are.
Are you making the most of your life?
Are any of us?
How do you decide if the life you’re living is up to the standard?
And who decides that standard?
It’s a well known point that people are all different so with that in mind, how can you decide if one person is grasping the nettle of life and another is letting the chances pass them by, content rather just to stare out of the window and enjoy the whooshing sound they make as they rocket along?
Would that mean that we have no way to look at someone and decide for ourselves or that each person should really be looked a on a case by case basis?
Imagine a race between two people.
They’re both running the same distance, say the 100 metres, they’re both wearing the appropriate attire and have spent years training to be the best that they can possibly be to get to this point. They ready themselves, the starting pistol fires and off they blast, their arms and legs driving like pistons as they cover the ground, only for one person to finish at about the same time that the other has reached only 75 metres. By the time the second person crosses the line, the winner is almost in the showers!
Clearly the winner is the one who was better but that’ll never be the whole story. The winner finished well outside their own personal best and in the grand scheme of things, didn’t really set the world on fire whereas the loser, the one who finished WELL behind, delivered not only a seasons best time, but a personal best and indeed, a national record for their country over that distance.
The person who won did so while working well within their powers but the person who lost squeezed everything they could out of themselves when it mattered. The winner could realistically be told they could have delivered more but the loser gave everything they had, and exceeded the best levels of performance ever seen in their entire country.
We all need to push ourselves. We have to set ourselves goals to ensure we’re making the most of the time we have but that doesn’t mean that looking at your neighbour to see how you’re getting on is the way to go. One person’s staircase is another’s Everest. What we all have to be able to do at the end of each day, is look into the mirror and be happy that we gave our very best, and keep pushing forwards to whatever goals we decide to set for ourselves.
In for a penny …………………..
Owen Elgie 