The First 24 Hours: Day 12 — Bhaag Milkha Bhaag!

Today marked the beginning of my college cultural fest, Riviera 2020. At the inauguration, we had the “run for a cause marathon” of 9.9 km. This year, the campaign was targeted to spread awareness about Cancer.

Like every year, my roommates and I were ready to participate (majorly)because we will be getting free t-shirts and chocolate drinks during the marathon.

We woke up by 4.30 in the morning and reached the venue in advance. We all were amazed to see how passionate people are for getting free goodies as everyone around was discussing the same thing(xD).

The crowd was insane. I got a number of 5085.

As soon as we reached the registration desk, the t-shirts got over. We were extremely disappointed (you know the level of disappointment when you push the door having a pull sign and question all these years of your education, that level). We thought of getting back to our hostels because our primary aim failed but we then decided to follow the morals( at least we have to say this because we were not allowed to go back from the middle xD).

It’s a 9.9 km marathon and none of us was an athlete(or at least a sportsperson) so when we were at about 35% of the whole distance, we saw a person coming from the opposite side(i.e, approaching the finishing line). As we again lost all hopes of winning ( the hopes that we should never have in the first place), we realized that we had enough of the time. And that was the changing point of us into the marathon. We interacted with new people, laughed at random stuff, got ourselves clicked(most importantly!) and literally crawled back to the starting point (Special thanks to the constant motivational voice shouting ‘Bhaag Milkha Bhaag” in the background of our mind throughout the marathon).

We were probably among the last ones to finish the marathon but I got my takeaway,

Not all races are meant to win. Some are for having fun and getting a good profile picture!

Many times, we are so engrossed in focusing on the end results that we judge ourselves on the basis of the things we are not actually meant for which not only drains our energy but also plants many negative emotions of self-doubt and despair.

So the next time you’re into a process of losing something, choose to focus on the process, do not forget to have fun, pose like a pro and then you have it all!

Thank you for reading!