#17 - Rwandan Proverb: You Can Outrun What Is Running After You, But Not What is Running Inside You.
Reflections on the need to manage the content and bent of your mind.
Proverbs on Blast is a newsletter that publishes reflection on PROVERBS and the gems they offer for personal and professional growth. Posts are written by a learner on a quest for more wisdom (me). Please keep reading. Comment at the end. Share this post. Subscribe for more.
Life is rarely still. We’re either running after something or vice versa. In some remote villages in Africa, kids get excited when they see automobiles. Not that it’s their first time of seeing a car. It’s usually because they rarely see one in their corner of the world, and they are just kids being kids. In most of those settings, rarely are the roads paved, and it’s easy for fast-moving automobiles to coat pedestrians in a dusty haze. But do the kids care? No. They’re always more excited about the car, the chase, and the rush of adrenalin from daring the impossible. None of them is a match for the speed of a moving car, but no one can still their joy when they gleefully assess how they almost caught up with the car when they get left behind.
Recently, I heard a Rwandan proverb: “You can outrun what is running after you, but not what is running inside of you.” As I reflected on the proverb, I recalled several scenes of African village kids chasing cars that I have witnessed. Many drivers allow the kids to run behind their cars within a safe distance. They encourage the kids’ misguided zeal at being able to run faster than cars if they tried. For a while, the tenacious kids are able to keep up. But when the driver has to go, he simply steps on the gas and shakes them off.
This proverb says that, in life, you may be able to shake off things akin to tenacious kids that will chase after you. If you move fast enough, you can outrun most things that run after you. For instance, should tiredness run after you before bedtime when there’s still work to do, outrun it by taking a nap or eating. Should failure run after you, try doubling up on your efforts, changing strategy, reversing course, being patient with the process, or getting out of complacency.
Even if you see death running after you in a way that seems more targeted, you may still be able to outrun it by making lifestyle changes to aspects of your life like your nutrition, sleep pattern, stress level, fitness habits, and/or work hours. Some of these changes implemented in the right way, the right amount, and at the right time may help you regain speed to outrun or slow down death.
Back to the African village scene of excited kids running after a moving car, one of your goals as a driver would be to keep the excitable kids in view at all times. For their safety as well as yours. Same as with life, you’ll have to do something similar to outrun whatever’s running after you.
So, when was the last time you looked in the rear-view mirror of your life? Or looked over your shoulder? What’s running after you that you can see or hear? What’s in your blind spot or lurking in the shadows that can easily spring into a run and gain on you? Do you know how far away they are, and how quickly or slowly they are gaining in on you? Do you have a plan for how you’re going to shake it off? Will you know when and how to adjust your speed? As this proverb alludes to, you can outrun whatever runs after you.
But that’s only the first part of the proverb.
This innocuous Rwandan proverb opens up more in the second part. It shifts the focus from what is running after you to what is running inside you. It presumes that whatever is running after you is external to you. While it may weigh on your mind, it is separate from your body. With the right set of circumstances, you may be able to put enough distance between you without making contact. But as to what is running inside you? The Rwandan elders noted that you cannot outrun it. You will have to reckon with it.
There are many things that are running inside each of us. Let’s focus on just two sets.
1) Gifts, Dreams, and Visions.
Everyone was born with a set of gifts that’s capable of being developed for great outcomes. These gifts lead to dreams and visions of what you can become, do, and accomplish are within you. Like babies in the womb needing to be born, dreams must be birthed at the right time. Delayed birth create great discomfort and can imperil the life of the mother. A compressed baby within the womb can jeopardize the health, wellbeing, and life of the mother. Same as your dreams. They are not meant to remain within you in perpetuity. There is a gestation period attached to each dream. After that time, you should birth them. Naysayers may run after you with their skepticism, scorn, or suspicion, but you can outrun their doubts and derision. What is inside you that will run and you cannot or will not be able to outrun? This proverb is a reminder to appraise your gifts, assess your progress, and act as a wise steward of your gifts, dreams, and visions. You cannot outrun them.
2) Mindset, Self-Thought, and Self-Talk.
A popular quote says that “if you think you can, you’re right. If you think you can’t, you’re right. Perhaps you are in tune with your gifts and know what you’re capable of. This section applies to you if, for years, you’ve dreamt of possibilities of what you can do and accomplish with your gifts. But while dreams and visions of those possibilities flashed through your mind, you also entertained several thoughts about why your dreams are not viable. Or why you are not competent to pursue your vision and realize them. For so long, you’ve internalized the assessment of skeptics about your capabilities that you now own the copyright to negative self-thought and self-talk about what you cannot do. You see yourself as a grasshopper while you see others as giants that could crush you.
If that is you, how are you dealing with the restlessness of what you are capable of doing that keeps you up at night and makes you sigh incessantly during the day? You’ve tried hard to shake off the feeling that you’re underperforming, underachieving, and underwhelming even to yourself. You would love to outrun the knowledge deep within you that you’re capable of so much more. But the more you run from it, the less you sleep at night. Even during the day, you’re surrounded by visual and verbal reminders that you can dare more, do more, and achieve more with your life and gifts. The reminders will swirl in torrents inside you. You may run from them for a while but you cannot outrun them.
Have you come to terms with the knowledge that you were born for a reason? Have you embraced the responsibility that you bear by being gifted in unique ways to be positively productive? You are gifted and your gifts were given for a purpose. The dreams you’ve had about using your gifts and accomplishing some good with them were not fleeting fantasies. From the Rwandan elders, why create raging conflicts between what you long to do and what you believe you cannot do? Your gifts will stir you in the direction of the purpose of your life. That is the direction you must run. And the direction towards which to bend your mind. Your thoughts should flow around using your genetic and cultivated aptitude to fulfill that purpose. What you allow your mind to say to you should reflect the awesome responsibility that you have a purpose to fulfill and that you’re busy pursuing it.
Outrun bad things that run after you. But take a cue from this proverb and stop attempting to run away from what runs on your inside. Whether good or bad, deal with it. Confront it. Nurture the good and may your life and influence be a wellspring from which flows goodness for the transformation of others.
LET’S TALK!
Have you figured out what’s running inside you? Are you running in sync, heading in the same direction or running away from it? Do you think you can outrun it? Do you know anyone who has successfully outrun what is inside them—good or bad? Share with us in the comments section below.
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