Monday morning will look a lot like it does for millions of families.
Backpacks will be packed.
New clothes will be laid out.
We’ll probably be rushing around trying to get everyone where they need to be on time.
And, of course, we’ll take the obligatory first-day-of-school pictures.
Another school year.
Another grade.
Another first.
We tend to be pretty good at recognizing the firsts in life.
The first day of school.
The first day at a new job.
The first race.
The first time you accomplish something you weren’t sure you could do.
The first day in a new role.
We take pictures.
We celebrate.
We remember the date.
But lately I’ve been thinking about something we aren’t nearly as good at recognizing.
The lasts.
Because most of the time, you don’t know it’s the last time while it’s happening.
At some point, there will be a last time one of my boys needs help tying his shoes.
A last time someone asks me to walk him into school.
A last time they reach for my hand crossing a parking lot.
A last bedtime story.
A last youth baseball game.
A last first day of school.
Eventually, there will even be a last night when all of our kids consider our house their house.
And the strange thing is, we’ll probably experience most of those moments without realizing what they are.
There won’t be a countdown.
Nobody will tell us:
“Pay attention. This is the last one.”
It will just happen.
Then life will move forward.
I’ve been thinking about that beyond fatherhood, too.
A couple of weeks ago, I watched someone celebrate the end of a long career.
I’ve recently stepped into a new role myself.
This past week, work brought me back to Branson, where I graduated high school, had my first job and caught up with someone I wrestled alongside all those years ago.
Different experiences, but they all keep reminding me of the same thing:
Life moves faster than we think it does.
We’re constantly preparing for what’s next.
The next school year.
The next promotion.
The next sales goal.
The next vacation.
The next race.
For me right now, one of those things is the Detroit Free Press Marathon.
October 18.
26.2 miles.
A finish line I’ve been preparing months to reach.
Running makes it incredibly easy to become obsessed with what’s ahead.
When you’re at mile 5, you’re thinking about mile 10.
At mile 10, you’re thinking about the half.
At mile 20, you’re definitely thinking about 26.2.
But here’s what I’ve learned:
If all you remember about a marathon is the finish line, you missed most of the race.
The people along the course.
The conversations.
The neighborhoods.
The signs.
The difficult miles.
The funny moments.
The person who ran beside you for a while.
Those are often the things you remember long after you’ve forgotten your exact finishing time.
Maybe life isn’t that different.
We’re supposed to look forward.
We’re supposed to prepare our kids for what’s next.
We’re supposed to grow in our careers.
Set bigger goals.
Take on new challenges.
Keep moving.
I don’t want to stop doing any of that.
But maybe we need to get better at being where our feet are while we’re doing it.
Put the phone down sometimes.
Stay at the dinner table a few minutes longer.
Have the conversation instead of saying, “Maybe later.”
Make the stop when you’re passing through town.
Go to the game.
Take the picture.
Listen to the story you’ve already heard three times.
Not because every ordinary moment needs to become some profound life event.
Most won’t.
But because we don’t get to know which ordinary moments we’ll someday desperately wish we could experience one more time.
That’s something I’m going to try to remember Monday morning.
My boys are growing up.
That’s exactly what they’re supposed to do.
And as their dad, part of my job is helping prepare them for the next mile—even when part of me wishes I could slow the clock down.
So we’ll take the first-day pictures.
We’ll celebrate the new grades, new teachers, new experiences and everything that comes with another year.
I’ll celebrate the first.
But I’m also going to try a little harder to notice everything happening between the first and the last.
Because someday there won’t be another first-day-of-school picture to take.
And when that day comes, I don’t want to look back and realize I spent all those years waiting for whatever was next.
A marathon is 26.2 miles.
The finish line matters.
But the finish line isn’t the race.
The miles are the race.
And maybe that’s true of life, too.
Keep moving forward.
Keep preparing for what’s next.
But every once in a while, look around.
Because today’s ordinary mile may eventually become one of the miles you’d give anything to run again.
Don’t become so focused on the finish line that you miss the miles you’ll someday wish you could run again.
#MondayMilesAndLeadership
#BuiltForTheLongRun
#Fatherhood #Leadership #Perspective