How are you running?

Attitude is everything. And there is a recommended attitude for him that would no longer be disabled. For this one, he is required to cultivate the attitude of the champion long distance runner. It is called running the race with patience.


It happens like this. All of the participating athletes are called up to the starting block. This is not a sprint event, no; it is long-distance and they are lined up, waiting for the take-off whistle. It goes and even when a few so visibly beat the gun, the mature referee does not ask for a repeat of the starting formalities. He has been this way many times.


The sophomores are going on strong, anxiously competing for the front places so early in the day. A few other recliners are simply trotting along, conscious of the fact that the journey is as long as their breath supplies are short. Hedged in-between these two are the champions. They had been up many dawn hours, practicing their routines and building capacity. Through this, they have picked up an internally consistent rhythm where their body clock has been synchronised with their running pace. They are not overly bothered by the external gyrations taking place all around them but are rather led by the internally structured running time-frames that have now become a part of them. They are running essentially against themselves; to meet and better the times achieved in their frequent training sessions. By the time the third lap begins, they are clearly the ones to watch.


Like the long distance runner described above, the race of life and indeed of success is such a winding and constantly changing one that you will miss the point if you do not come to it with a comprehensive strategy to last the whole distance. ‘All the days of my appointed time, the Holy Bible champion of patience, Job, encouraged himself, ‘I will wait until my change comes.’
Job sure knows and can therefore teach us a few things about patience. Here was a man who had everything going for him. Great family, great wealth, great reputation, great grace, great friends, great parties, great faith, great worship; indeed he was the quintessential example of one who was living the proverbial good life.


And then tragedy set in and by the day, he began to experience grief in unparalleled dimensions.


‘This is just too much; curse God and die,’ his distraught and exasperated wife chirruped. His answer: ‘Shall we receive good from The Almighty and not take bad when it comes?’ ‘We have found you out, o pretender and deceiver. Holier-than-thou! Cunning hypocrite! You are experiencing all of these because of your sins,’ his great friends, surmised; ‘repent pal, repent!’ His answer: ‘you guys really do not get it. My integrity was never a game and remains speaking till date!’ Indeed Job was not only just a quintessential fighter, but equally one who was well aware of the fact that there was indeed a lawful way to achieve mastery and victory. And so he ran his race with patience.


(from my forthcoming book; Stand up disabled!)