Encouragement Found to Finish Our Own Race

In the past several days I have been thinking about the mission and vision of Second Chance to Live. As I thought about my mission and vision I was encouraged to continue to run my race as I reflected.

I was encouraged to do so by several Quotes and Aesop’s Fable of the Tortoise and the Hare. (see below)

May you also be encouraged to be stay committed to whatever your mission and vision may be in life. To stay committed by the quotes and the fable of the Tortoise and the Hare, as you continue to run your race.

---

The Tortoise and the Hare — an Aesop Fable

One day a hare was bragging about how fast he could run. He bragged and bragged and even laughed at the tortoise, who was so slow. The tortoise stretched out his long neck and challenged the hare to a race, which, of course, made the hare laugh.

“My, my, what a joke!” thought the hare.

“A race, indeed, a race. Oh! what fun! My, my! a race, of course, Mr. Tortoise, we shall race!” said the hare.

The forest animals met and mapped out the course. The race begun, and the hare, being such a swift runner, soon left the tortoise far behind. About halfway through the course, it occurred to the hare that he had plenty of time to beat the slow trodden tortoise.

“Oh, my!” thought the hare, “I have plenty of time to play in the meadow here. And so he did. After the hare finished playing, he decided that he had time to take a little nap. “I have plenty of time to beat that tortoise,” he thought. And he cuddle up against a tree and dozed.

The tortoise, in the meantime, continued to plod on, albeit, it ever so slowly. He never stopped, but took one good step after another.

 The hare finally woke from his nap. “Time to get going,” he thought. And off he went faster than he had ever run before! He dashed as quickly as anyone ever could up to the finish line, where he met the tortoise, who was patiently awaiting his arrival.

The moral from the fable: Slow and steady wins the race. The fable encourages me to keep running my Race, although I may have people (including myself, at times) who do not think that I can Win.

---

Quotes that Encourage me to Keep my Focus on Running my own Race

“Big things have small beginnings.” Prometheus

“Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.” Babe Ruth

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.” Lao Tzu

“I will prepare and someday my chance will come.” Abraham Lincoln

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” Theodore Roosevelt

“Don’t give up at half time. Concentrate on winning the second half.” Bear Bryant

“All life is an experiment. The more experiments the better.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Believe in yourself, go after your dreams, and don’t let anyone put you in a box.” Daya

“Those who danced were considered to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music.” Angela Monet

“History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats.” B.C. Forbes

“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something is more important than fear.” Ambrose Redmon

“Not everyone will understand your journey. That’s okay. You’re here to live your life, not to make everyone understand.” Banksy

“I was told over and over again that I would never be successful. That I was not going to be competitive. And the technique was simply not going to work. All I could do is shrug and say, “We’ll just have to see.” Dick Fosbury (Inventor of the Fosbury Flop and winner of the gold medal in the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City

“You may be the only person left who believes in you, but it’s enough. It takes just one star to pierce a universe of darkness. Never give up.” Richelle E. Goodrich

“When you dance to your own rhythm people may not understand you; they may even hate you. But mostly they’ll wish they had the courage to do the same.” Sue Fitzmaurice

“If you advance confidently in the direction of your dreams and endeavor to live the life that you have imagined…you will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” Henry David Thoreau

“Insist on yourself, never imitate. Your own gift you can present with the cumulative force of a whole life’s cultivation, but of the adopted talent of another, you only have an extemporaneous half-possession. Do that which is assigned to you and you cannot hope too much or dare too much.” Henry David Thoreau

“Your time is limited so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most importantly, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” Steve Jobs

“Don’t quit. Never give up trying to build the world you can see, even if others can’ see it. Listen to your own drum and your own drum only. It is the one that makes the sweetest sound.” Simon Sineck

“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.” Steve Job

---