I ran cross country in high school and the longer races on the track team. I was never competitive, I mostly enjoyed the team spirit and the challenge of completing a 3 or 5 mile run. I recall one meet where they needed another person to compete in the 3200 meter race or our star performer would not have a chance to qualify for the state competitions. I was fairly ill and had already done the 1600 but I figured I could walk it if I had to, the point was that someone from our team simply go around the track 8 times. By the 5th time around, I had already been lapped by a few of the front runners and I was seriously questioning my decision. Usually when I ran a long race, I would pace myself throughout and then put everything I had into the last 100 meters. I made the decision that I would not do that this time, as I made my way around the final curve of the track, since I was the only person left on the track by this point. But instinct won over and as I crossed the 100 meter line on the track, I automatically kicked it into high gear, which wasn't very high by that point. As I worked to correct this error and slow down, the crowd in the stands began to stand, cheer, and clap for me. My instinctive push had inspired them to cheer me on and their cheering inspired me to continue.
When I think about working in the nonprofit world, I often compare it to my experiences as a runner. Lasting social change is created through consistency, not sporadically applied passion. It's a marathon, not a mad dash to finish line, and if we want to be effective, we need to remember that. We often lose our strongest people because they burn themselves out trying to sprint the 26 miles of the marathon. Keeping that perspective, understanding that if we work ourselves so hard that we burn out we won't get where we want to go, is an invaluable part of what we do in the nonprofit sector.
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