Falling Behind Happily And Gracefully

Last week I was out cycling with David Khan, one of my coach's professional guys. David is the world Ironman 70.3 25-29 age group champion, and former Olympic trials swimmer once ranked 8th in the US in the 200m Medley. Boy all I could say is that he was fit. However the lesson learned from riding with him was not a chest thumping one where "Oh I beat him in that ride etc etc" but more of a lesson in patience and learning how to fall behind. David obviously being the fitter one, would pull away at times leaving me behind for awhile.

When someone drops you in life, what do we do? In work, love, sports or anything else, the first thing that comes to mind is I must do more or work harder to be able to catch up to that person. Or in other words "I MUST DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT" however as I grow (and continuing growing) I guess sometimes the best thing to do is just let yourself get dropped and move along at your own pace through life, meaning sometimes we should just sit back, continue at our own pace, enjoy the ride, not do anything about it and when the time is right you'll eventually catch up.

As an athlete I always watch the faster swimmers pull away from me quickly in a race while I try aimlessly to bridge up from the back. After that, I spent countless hours in the pool to try to be as good as those guys were and I remember last year after a certain period of time, I begin to feel delusioned and not really improving as fast as I wanted to. I grew weary and tired when instead I should be celebrating ever small improvement that I make. Looking back at it now, Ive come to realised that everything takes time, and those guys got to where they are from years and years of competitive swim training while me, who only starting swimming in Oct 06 should be glad that I can still swim and not lose too much time to them. Even now, I'm nowhere near them, but I'm enjoying my journey and hopefully in time I'll catch back up to them. All that I'm doing now definitely beats the drugs and shortcuts some the dishonest pro athletes use at times to make it up there, only to crash back down again when reality strikes.It is not always the fittest, but the smartest and most patient athlete that wins the race! In life its the same thing too. Life is a journey that is long, bumpy and winding at times so why rush through it trying to finish it first and trying to keep up with others when it'll only burn you out before you reach the end? Rather than doing that, why don't we all try to finish it with as much joy and happiness so that every mile, meter, minute and second of it will forever be cherished even after the race is done.

Lets all slow down at times, do nothing and enjoy the moment while letting nature take its course.

Yuen