A short while ago, as I was watching the closing ceremony of the 2022 Winter Olympics, I realised an obvious fact that out of 2971 participating athletes, only about 300 of them have won a medal. The rest of these Olympians did not win any medals at all.
With each sport, we rarely care about those who came up 4th, 5th or 10th. We may wonder, what were they doing here? How would they feel, not winning anything?
Of course those are silly questions. Those medalless Olympians must have their own goals and not everyone is in the game for a medal. They may not win a medal, but they probably gain something equally good or more important, otherwise why bother?
Now think about our goals. Setting a goal and eventually accomplishing it is great. Just like winning a medal in the Olympics. But what if we don’t get to achieve that goal? What if our goal we try so hard to reach never happens? Are we a failure? Are those medalless athletes automatic failures?
We can certainly choose to think so. But I think we have a better choice. We are never a failure as long as pursuing our goal has its intrinsic value. Regardless of whether we achieve our goal or not, we become a better version of ourselves by pursuing the goal journey itself, just like thousands of these medalless Olympians have done.
As you go through your day today, remind yourself that life is more about the journey than the end goal.
