A Never-Ending Friendship
Take a look at what led you to who you are today, paying significant attention to the whole story that belongs to you.
I learned something from myself tonight, maybe I learned it many years ago, now I’m just experiencing it more intensely. I learned that best friends not only run 30-40 km a week together, speed or endurance, but they will always be together even if everyone is against them.
The long-distance voter has learned what friendship really means, feeling better the emotional, pure and strong connection that makes you a better person. He never gives up a sincere friendship in any form. It’s something rare, precious, long lasting. Something as rare as a barely flowering rose that slowly opens to the new, reflecting self-appreciation and correct appreciation of others. The voter thinks, lives, sees everything from the perspective of speed and endurance. He gets excited before the competitions. He has fears. Sometimes he wins, other times he doesn’t. But he always comes back to the group…
He always runs. And runs, and runs, and runs. In any weather. Any distance. At any age. He does not know how to give up ideals, dreams, a philosophy of life, past victories, against fate. He does not know how to give up on himself, because he has learned to be attached to his own physical, mental and energetic structure. Perhaps any philosophy of life begins with the sensitivity of a deep soul, hardened by the flame of pain, or longing for those who are no more.
Maybe this is where the Damascus Rose draws its sap, from the rooting that a sincere and loving soul has over another soul. And the runner, like a rose, is the witness of an existence that wants to be lived fully, absolutely.
Believe me, the strongest emotion that a runner experiences is triggered when, after many, many years of training, he once again sees the few friends who, 25 years ago, when they were children, met on a cold winter night and decided to run together. Maybe the paths of life, so twisted, took them away from the city where they met, where they grew up, where they became friends. Some have families, others don’t. But they all became winners in a certain field of activity.
And, at one point, one of us breaks the silence on the mountain, and says with his eyes full of enthusiasm, and with a little nostalgia:
“I’m so glad we all stayed the same… even better than before.”
Leadership: Do you trust that everything you experience is part of the ascension of an existence that takes on the memories of other lives, and that your ascension depends on how others see you in your world?
Running is a friendship that never ends. It is a goodbye that leaves you with many smiles and beautiful memories. It is a performance that is reflected even in other areas of activity. We will all meet again every week, every month, every year, until the years lose their number. Attachment is the watchword in running. Maybe, in the end, we will surpass our years, we will surpass any age, we will always exceed our limits. Because memories, friendship and strong character never die…
The course of this road, full of perspiration and resistance, as well as the way of Japanese weapons, is an approach that has two distinct meanings, but somehow linked by a magical reciprocity: it does not accept self-defeat and does not accept the so common “I'm better, better ranked” attitude. When you run, you remember what you feel for yourself, what you are passionate about, what you deserve, what you forgot in the tumult of ordinary life. Thus, you begin to prioritize the feeling of pride, that you are one of the winners, prioritizing in your existence the feeling of start and finish.
Both meanings are acquired by following this path, called Atrynfranidhis , meaning the inclination of the soul towards the noble goal represented by the defeat of infatuation and the abandonment of an Ego crushed by habits and dulled by time. Here we must consider, first of all, as a kind of pillar in the ascent of personal development, the defeat of the inner enemy: The ego full of selfish possessiveness over things, which demands constant attention and exceeds in circumference any praise from the outside.
Such an Ego can play tricks on you when you least expect it.
Running can be a victory if you let the Ego be a release from despair, a release from all worldly suffering, or it can be a defeat if you let the Ego dominate you, consume you, lead your life and destiny, making you look at everything through the lens of regret. He who walks this path (self-defeat) cannot adopt an honorable behavior toward a presumptive external enemy, called “augmented reality”, which he will always encounter in a total and true confrontation. Because running, coming in the development of human character, has the possibility of manifesting the observable reality of the potential winner in an excellent stimulator of increasing self-confidence.
After all, I believe that the ascension of an existence that assumes the memories of other lives is reflected in the feelings you experience as an ancient hero, holding a burning torch: the intense effort you make to be unique is directly proportional to what you leave behind.
Leadership can be perceived as returning to a previous existence that decided eternal destiny: you must first prove that you meant something in the past, and at the same time be known in the present life as the same unique, great man.
A Never-Ending Friendship is a difficult running test, transformed into a limitless experience that offers you a lot of life lessons, tears and smiles. If you manage to discover the beauty of every running story, then don’t stop…
