The Second Wind
When I was a student at schools and college, generally speaking, I loved sports. But for P.E lessons, I dreaded 800m tests, and so did most other fellow students. But that particular item speaks the loudest how fit you really are.
I find there're quite some similarities in running a good race and being successful in whatever we want to do in life.
When we just start to run a race, we're all fresh and we have a lot of energy, passion, and high expectation. We're tempted to run faster than we should and we want to dash out to the very front. But then sooner or later we'll reach to a point, in Chinese we call it Jixian, where we feel extremely tired and exhausted, our bodies just don't seem to cope, the heartbeat is up, the legs are heavy,and we're out of breath. All we want to do is to stop. But if we can just hang on, after a while the body will actually adjust to it and we'll get "the second wind", which is a renewed and prolonged strength and energy that will see us to the end. The faster we run at the beginning, the harder the transition will become.
When we start a new business or a new project, a marriage,any new endeavor, we tend to put a lot of energy and action right at the beginning, as we're fresh, we're passionate and we have very high expectation. But sooner or later we'll come to a point where we're challenged totally from every area: The plan doesn't seem to work, the passion's gone, the strength and energy's gone, we lose the vision, everything just seem to work against us. All we feel like is give up and forget about it. But, that's not the whole picture. Hold on! Just keep going, and persevere, or just hang in there, and in time we'll find that the circumstance will start to change. We will have a "second wind", which is a more realistic attitude, strength and energy that will see us through.
The second wind, or the renewed strength, is the most important factor in the whole race. It's the key element in deciding whether we are gonna win or not, or whether we're really fit or not.
There is a danger, that if we put too much action and expectation at the beginning, the "jixian" will come prematurely, and it can become too overwhelming that we simply cannot cope and just have to give up. If we're running a 800m race, but start out with a 100m race speed, we know we're in for big trouble.
So, whenever we want to enter into something new, we need to plan for the whole procedure: start with good endeavor but realistically, hang on when things get tough, persevere with renewed strength and energy, and give all you have when success is within reach.
Isaiah40:31 "But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they sall walk, and not faint."
Tuesday, August 19, 2003
