Brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want something badly enough. They are there to keep out the other people. - Randy Pausch ( 1960-2008 )

Concrete Truth

Posted June 8th, 2010 by wilson

Sometimes, after a long “working” day, I look back and realize that despite all of the day’s accomplishments, I am still way far from what I want or need to accomplish overall. For instance, I’d work all day finishing a set of slides only to realize afterwards that I still have to do 15 other sets!

Days like that, I discovered, are perfectly capped with a mid-distance run at constant pace. In those runs I am reminded how step after step become meters, how meters after meters become kilometers, and how kilometers build up one by one to ultimately cover lng distances. It’s all about small seemingly inconsequential things building up in succession - except that nothing is really inconsequential. There are really no shortcuts - to get to the 10th mile, you have to go through the 9th, and before that, the 8th, and so on. But eventually, you will get there. In tough stretches, laps, rounds, or kilometers, you simply have to keep on going and tell yourself “This too, shall pass.”.

They say that only patient, reflective people could become long distance runners. I’m not so sure about that. I don’t exactly consider myself patient, but I think I definitely have more patience now than before. And that, I believe, has a lot to do with repeatedly facing mile after mile of the Concrete Truth.

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Filed under:Thoughts and Musings

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