Life 101: Encouragement for Graduates

An unknown author tells the story of a race. Trembling with fear, hope, and excitement, runners line up. Parents and friends watch from the sidelines, cheering them on. The whistle blows. Off they go.

A boy in the lead thinks how proud his dad must be. The next moment, he slips and falls.

“Quit! Give up. You’re beaten!” the crowd jeers.

Stunned for a moment, the boy believes it. Then he sees his father’s face. He can almost hear his dad shout, “Get up and win the race!”

The runner leaps to his feet and races on, only to fall a second time, then a third! Three strikes and you’re out. Why go on? Yet above the taunts of the crowd, his father’s voice rings in his ears. “Get up and win the race!”

The boy again springs to his feet He knows he cannot win the race, but he will not quit. He hears the cheers for the winner and keeps on running. Head bowed, he comes in last, to louder cheers than the winner received. It is small comfort.

“l didn’t do well, Dad,” he sadly tells his father.

His father places his hands on the exhausted boy’s shoulders. “Son, to me you did win. Each time you fell, you kept going.”

The boy becomes a man. He faces dark, hard times. People still shout in his face, “Quit. Give up. You’re beaten.” Yet memories of the boy he once was remind him that all he has to do is to keep on getting up and going on.

For all through the years, his father’s voice still rings in his ears, “Get up and win the race!”