Celebrate the Journey

On a running forum today, I read the story of a participant in the WDW Marathon. She told how she had to get on the sweep bus at Mile 18 because she had not kept up the required pace. She wrote,

"So, even though I had the heart and strength to go 8.2 more, I was ushered ever so quickly onto to the bus and brought back to the finish."

I know how sad she must have felt. I was disappointed because even though I finished all 26.2 miles and received my medal, I won't receive a certificate since I finished 2 minutes after the timing mats were stopped.

Sometimes our efforts don't quite get us the results we want. We don't get to celebrate the way we had planned. On those occasions, we need to look at the journey, not just the destination. We need to celebrate the efforts we made and the progress we achieved along the way.

For this marathon, I will celebrate my dedication and training before the race. I will celebrate getting to the start line and taking off when the gun sounded. I will celebrate every mile I mastered. I will celebrate because I did my best on this day for this race. But most of all, I will celebrate because I had the courage to aim for a goal and go for it.

It's great when you achieve everything you set out to do. But sometimes we learn more and can truly appreciate ourselves when we really look at how hard we've worked along the way. Then when we do realize our dreams, we can truly understand why it means so much.