Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.
Allen Saunders – 1957
It’s a cliché but it is true, I spend so much time getting caught up thinking “i’ll be happy when I do X”, yet when I get to X there is always Y right around the corner!
I have spent the past 4-5 years training hard as a good amateur runner. I have a full time job with DesignPlace and do not live as a professional (I love cake and beer too much for that), but I can easily spend up to 10 hours a week training which tends to put me near the front of any field. Last year I achieved a goal to run 10km in under 35 minutes. Today I did it again. The first time I achieved the feat I was ecstatic, my training had paid off and I had hit a goal! Yet today, with the same feat, I notice myself disappointed. Why is this?
In reality, I hit that time with around 50% of the training load that I did last time due to some health issues this year, so clearly I have progressed as an athlete, yet my mental model has shifted and I have moved on from X to Y. Being the best amateur is no longer good enough. I want to compete with the pros.
Yet here is the catch. If I can compete with the pros, i’ll want to beat them. And if I don’t, i’ll be disappointed! It is a never ending cycle of goal and new goal.
One of my favourite song lyrics is a Kanye West line where he says “If you admire somebody, you should go ahead and tell them. People never get the flowers while they can still smell them.” We are all so caught up in where we are going that we forget to stop and think about where we are. We ignore people around us, we ignore ourselves, our lives and all of the tiny things that happen that make our existence magic.
Lets not forget, life is the journey and the journey is life.