Message of the Day - Persistence and Finishing the Race

Good Morning,

 

I did not time it this way, but after my last message on Persistence, I read a passage about an Olympian from Tanzania, John Stephen Ahkwari and his performance in the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico. Ahkwari was not the fastest runner, nor the winner, actually he was the last runner. Although he was last, he won the same if not more accolades than the winners. He crossed, or rather hobbled across the finish line over 60 minutes after the winner.

 

As he made his way to the finish line you could see he was in pain. His leg was poorly bandaged from some mishap during the marathon, and he looked simply spent as he worked his way into the stadium for the final lap of the race. During the run he slowed to walk a few steps and then started running again, slowing up when necessary, but never stopping. He never gave up.

 

But, it was not so much the performance itself that deserves mention, but Ahkwari’s comments after his finished the race.

 

When Film Director Bud Greenspan asked him, “Why did you keep going?” John Stephen Ahkwari said, “You don’t understand. My country did not send me 5,000 miles to start a race, they sent me to finish it.”

 

If this is not simply a beautiful definition of persistence, courage, determination and willpower, then I am not sure what is.

 

Sticking to our tasks before us may not be easy, and they may be painful. It can take acts of great courage and determination to stick it out to the end. And when we do, we are better off for it. Our friend Brad Barton, Olympic hopeful himself, had a taste of this painful determination to finish his own race, and you can read about it his book ‘Beyond Illusions’ (http://www.morebetterbooks.com).

 

Have there been times in your life when you felt like giving up, you had many reasons to give up, but you kept at it?

 

It may not be a race or even a sporting event, it could be work. I had one task to review and edit the individual customer information in a database, one record at a time, over 30,000 records in all. It took me three months to do it, in the middle of my other tasks. It was a great feeling to finish.

 

John Stephen Ahkwari pushed forward to finish, against the pain, against the call to give up, and in the process gave us an example of what it means to persist to the end.

 

If you want, here is a two minute video of Ahkwari’s finishing of the marathon. http://speedendurance.com/2007/07/15/how-to-finish-a-marathon-1968-olympics-in-mexico-city/

 

What races are we running in, or working through, and how are we doing? Do we have what it takes to keep pushing onward to finish our work, our race?

 

If you start to doubt, watch the video again and remember, you can do it, I have faith in you.

 

Enjoy!

 

 

Sanford Berenberg

Sanford@berenberg.net

http://www.berenberg.net

http://sanfordberenberg.blogspot.com/

502-533-9336

 

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