Every year I have to re-qualify on the physical aptitude test. The different tests aren’t that hard for me, push ups, sit ups, squats, defensive tactics, carry 40 pounds, climb a ladder and more. The one thing that always bounces around in my mind is the quarter mile run.

If you run it in under 2 minutes then you get bonus points. I am an over achiever and always try and get the highest score possible while others are satisfied with simply passing. But the quarter mile is my challenge and every year while running it, I always want to stop on the last lap. My legs start to hurt, my heart is pounding, I am gasping for air but I make my self pour on the last bit of strength I have and give all I have till the end. It is not easy, when your whole body is saying STOP.

Strangely enough, every year I qualify with a time of 1 minute and 57 seconds. The exact same for the last two years, not a second more or less but the same. Next year, I am going to try and beat that time. I will start off and keep going till the finish line.

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“Imagine this:
You walk up to a car and are instructed to start pushing. You do.
It doesn’t go very far and someone else comes up and asks you to start pushing on a different car instead.
Since the first car isn’t moving very much, you decide to push the second one while a newcomer (John) starts pushing car number one. You don’t have much success with car number two, so at the urging of someone, let’s just call him an “ezine publisher”, you move on to car number three while John continues to stay with car number one.
You get kind of frustrated with car number three because the darn thing just doesn’t move much when you push on it. In disgust, you move on to car number four, five, six and seven because someone you know told you that they would be better.
All the while, ‘ol John sticks with car number one.
After a few hours you haven’t gotten anywhere. You were only able to move the cars just a little bit and you’ve decided to call it quits. You look around and it’s then that you notice it…
…John and car number one are gone.
They are nowhere to be seen.
You see, while you went from car to car, pushing a little and then moving on when results didn’t come fast enough, John continued pushing.
And pushing.
And pushing.
And car number one started rolling. Slowly at first, but then faster. Soon,
John had some MOMENTUM going. And he moved on down the road.”

AmitabhB

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