So much of life is looking forward to events, anticipating milestones, or desiring the end of something. We look forward to holidays and birthdays. We anticipate the achievement of some goal. We can't wait for the last day of school or to graduate.

I have lived my fair share of “last days” of school. I have “graduated” more times than I have fingers on a hand. I have experienced so many finish lines. I have enjoyed and agonized over many 18th holes, final innings, last games, final match. These are all like targets on the calendar. We see them. We long to reach them and then it is done, or is it?

These endings, final outs, finish lines are more like beginnings than endings. We should Look Through the Finish to see the Beginning that it really is.

In the coming weeks many students graduate from high school. For most students it is a day circled on the calendar and marked in their psych for weeks or perhaps months. But even the event is telling us what it is. It is called Commencement. It is actually the start, not the finish. Students are leaving high school but now embarking on what will become of the rest of their lives.

This same phenomenon will occur with our Lower School students.  The 4th graders will see their final days with us with the anticipation of middle school.  All others eagerly await the thought of being in the next grade level.

The ending of one period of schooling only signals the beginning of the next phase. After high school, what's next? After undergrad, what's next? After Masters, what's next? After PhD, what's next? As the end became reality I always found myself looking through this finish to what would be next.

I have crossed my fair share of finish lines from 5Ks to marathons to triathlons of varying length. Each time there is joy in reaching the finish line, particularly if a goal was reached. But these finish lines only marked the line between the finish of one and the start of another. The end was the beginning of reflection and self-analysis of how to improve when the next attempt came along.  School is unique in that it has the endings and beginnings.  Accomplishments come and then it is the presentation of new challenges.

With this line of thinking, our life, our daily living, our professional endeavors are all acts of doing, reflecting, and doing again. Do we ever really reach a finish line, or just cross one in order to start the journey to the next?

We will soon finish the school year. There will be  joy in the accomplishment but almost instantly we can be reflecting on this year and beginning to think of how to improve and achieve even more the next year. 

Look Through the Finish. It is never the End. It is only the beginning of another challenge and what to do to continue to grow and improve!