I looked back over my shoulder.  I couldn’t find my husband anywhere so I assumed I could just relax and chat a bit more while he caught up to me.  I had jogged a little while with a friend and gotten ahead of him.  He was the “official pace car” because he walks almost exactly a 15 minute mile indefinitely.  We were on our four mile qualifying walk for the youth pioneer trek coming up this summer.  To participate, we had to walk, run or crawl four miles within one hour.  After a while, I still couldn’t see him so I relaxed some more when my friend suddenly gasped and pointed ahead of us on the other side of the street.  There he was looking back at me with the biggest grin I’ve ever seen.  We started laughing and hustling to catch up.  His bright yellow shirt was mocking me.  I was so mad and loved it at the same time.  What a tease!

The whole race was a personification of the tortoise and the hare.  My husband lived out his part to the letter.  He moved at approximately the same speed regardless of the difficulty or distance.  He even walked the same speed up and down the big bridge over the river.  He was in all respects a tortoise while I was the hare.  I went every different speed there was.  I went fast to catch up to someone I wanted to talk to, walked slow while we chatted, paused to wait and matched my husband so we could talk, and then raced to get ahead of him again when I got behind.  I ran up the bridge and walked down.  There was no apparent or externally obvious consistency or order to my pacing.  We were exactly opposite.

Four years ago at our last trek with our youth group, we were really no different.  We were in a long line of pioneer hand-carts and each couple, a “ma” and “pa”, had a “family” of several youth we supervised and watched over.  My husband kept the pace and kept us on schedule.  I let myself get way behind to check on and protect one of our “children” who was diabetic and having physical problems keeping up.  I ended up way back at the last hand-cart with others struggling to keep up.  Then, seeing she needed help, I sprinted along past the whole wagon train to get to the lead car to get medical help.  I went to the hospital with her and many times found myself running around the camp for the medic on duty.  I have to say I was very proud we kept her alive and so thankful for my husband because he kept the crisis from being a crisis for everyone.  Together we made a great team.

I know some of you are dying to know… yes, in true tortoise fashion, my husband beat me by a few paces across the finish line.  He won.  Yes, the tortoise won.  But, I won, too.  I crossed the line within the allotted time and I had built relationships with many people.  I had the thrill of going fast and the ease of thinking, talking, and going really slow.  Racing him was a really fun way to play together and keep in touch the whole way as we went into and out of close proximity.  I won because I had met all of my objectives.  Beating my husband was never one of them.

It took me a very long time to define success for myself partly because it is not the same for everyone else.  I don’t measure it in tangible things.  Success to me is living in a way that matches my internal values, beats my personal records and reaches for my potential whether it looks successful to others or not.

My challenge for you today is to discover:

What is winning to you?

Dare to be yourself

Dare to win your own way

Play with people who aren’t like you

And if you’re a hare, for heaven’s sake, hop!

Namaste,

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Losing Myself Getting Your Fitness Back On Track Stressed By ‘Yes’: How to make it work when you didn’t say ‘no.’ Split Your Personality