My greatest lesson in Life

So I've noticed there are basically two types of blogs; opinion blogs, and information blogs. This blog seems to have a pretty even share of the two because Melissa does a good job with the information/pictures that most of you care about and I tend to write more opinion posts that probably only appeal to a small portion of our faithful readers. So without further ado here is another pictureless post.

I've been reflecting a lot over the past month on my dad. The post some time ago about my sobfest home from the ER was caused by his diagnosis of Lymphoma. He has started his treatment and though it will be very difficult we all feel very confident that everything will turn out okay.

My dad and I have always gotten along really well. I consider myself lucky that I have been able to go to him for help at any time in my 31 years of life and he has always been able to give that help. It should come as no surprise that much of what I am I contribute to my father. If there was any time that our relationship was the least bit strained it was during my high school years. Ironically, over the last year I have realized that my greatest lesson in life started at one singular moment with my dad during those years.

I ran Track and Cross Country in high school, and at the time my dad was the girls' coach for both sports. Our distance coach in track was nonexistant so dad did a lot with the boys team as well. Track and Field in Utah consists of three major meets with a bunch of smaller ones thrown in for good measure. One of those major meets is the BYU invitational. When I was a junior I remember getting ready to run the 3200 (2 mile) at BYU. My best time was right near the division point of one heat to another. As is custom we embelished my time a little to get me into the faster heat. Up until recently I have considered this a terrible decision.

I started off the race doing well but as we got further and further along I got further behind the main pack of runners and I'm pretty sure by the middle of my 7th lap I was alone in last place. These guys were just better than me. Rather than give up I ran as hard as I ever had for fear of being lapped by the lead runner (I did avoid being lapped, but just barely). As I rounded the last turn on my 8th lap I was the only runner left on the track. I was getting the courtesy clap from most of the crowd. When I finished I found that I had run my fastest 3200 ever and it wasn't even close. I was devastated and embarrassed to have taken last. I gained no measure of comfort from the fact that I had done my best. My dad on the other hand couldn't have been prouder. In fact I can't remember a race in my high school career where my dad was more excited with my performance.

Fast forward to my senior year. Very early in the season I ran a 5 minute mile. Generally you can expect to improve quite a bit over the process of a season so the prospect of running at state and actually running well was not out of the question. Through no lack of laziness on my part that race was the fastest of my career. Though he never said much (and still doesn't) I'm pretty sure my dad was disappointed in my lack of progress that season. I had a great spring that year and actually placed well in a few races, but when I look back I know that I could have done better.

The lesson in all this, that I am finally beginning to see at 31 years of age, is that life is all about doing your best. The world tells us that success is defined by how well you do compared to everyone around you. You have to make more money than your neighbor. You have to be a better father than your coworker. Your kid needs to be the smartest kid in class. There is no truth in this way of thinking. Success is all about doing your best. It's not even about improving from yesterday, because that isn't always possible (another thing I have learned from my dad as he has aged and started going through Chemo). If I can look back at my day each night (or each morning after having been on call) and say that I did my best it is a good day.

In my race of life there are times I feel I'm running in first and times I feel I'm running in last, but for the past little while at least I feel like the Father who's watching this race is pretty happy with me because I'm staying on track to run my best time, and I think that makes my dad happy too.