Lisa Hopkins: The Hurdles We Face in the Human Race

We’ve all had to ponder what is truly important during these times, and what values have given us the strength to soldier on despite the hurdles we’ve faced. In the end, it isn’t about winning the race or how many hurdles we knock down along the way, it’s about celebrating our small victories and the gifts of the journey itself; if we choose to recognize them.

Transcript

As if life as we know it isn’t already disorienting enough, the recent Olympic games were called Olympic Games Tokyo 2020.

100 years from now, our ancestors are going to have a difficult time understanding the chronology of this decade. It makes it look somehow like we gained a year - another lap around the sun - which is ironic when 2020 was a year when so many of us lost so much.

But in the spirit of looking at things from different perspectives, let’s remind ourselves that without experiencing loss we can’t experience it’s opposite.

If you know me, you won’t be surprised that I looked up the antonym for the word loss. The first entry that came up when I googled its opposite was not win or gain but : recovery and finding. 

I’m gonna roll with that one because it speaks to the tremendous resilience and growth I’ve witnessed this year with my clients and the extraordinary guests I’ve had the privilege of speaking with on the podcast.

Without loss we can’t know it’s inverse. Acknowledging what we’ve lost sheds light on what we considered valuable in the first place and offers us the opportunity not only to REcover but to UNcover what has been hidden underneath and DISCOVER gifts that we might not otherwise have found.

We’ve all had to ponder what is truly important during these times, and what values have given us the strength to soldier on despite the hurdles we’ve faced. In the end, it isn’t about winning the race or how many hurdles we knock down along the way, it’s about celebrating our small victories and the gifts of the journey itself if we choose to recognize them.

At the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics, a Finnish runner was ahead of his closest rival when he crossed the finish line….except there was no finish line. He saw that the lap counter read one more lap to go…so went around again until he did finally break the tape to win the gold medal. Some 13 seconds later, another runner crossed , followed by American Joseph McCluskey in third place. Except a funny thing happened on the way to the finish line. The race had already ended before it had ended.

Apparently, the official in charge of the lap counter forgot to record the first lap. In other words, the runners all ran an extra lap. Fortunately for the Finnish runner, he was clearly in the lead when he completed 3,000 meters. Unfortunately for McClusky, he was in second at the end of the 3,000 to his third place after the extra lap. When officials realized the error, they offered a re-run the next day but McCluskey declined the chance saying “a race has only one finish line.”

I leave you with that thought and remind you that we are all olympians in the human race which indeed has only one finish line. How we get there is up to us.

I’m Lisa Hopkins, thanks for listening. Stay safe and healthy everyone and remember to live in the moment.