I want to tell you a quick story about when Uncle Jake was a kid and when Uncle
Jake learned some things that were very important to him and that really helped
him begin to lead a better life so there's a lesson to this story it's like
a fable and so pay attention and see if you can learn what the lesson is so
here's a story from Uncle Jake when I was a little kid I was running in a race
it was a pretty long race for kids my dad had taken me to another town to run
the race because I liked running the race was about four miles long adults
and kids were both running at the same time so it was kind of crowded and it
was hard to even see with all the people around it was the biggest race I had
ever been in as soon as it started I ran really hard as hard as I could and it
seemed like I was winning the race at least it seemed like I was winning for
all the kids that were in the race but I didn't look back I kept looking ahead
and focused on winning and they look back at all because I knew that looking
back slows you down I just ran and ran and ran and I was
really really tired but I kept running as hard as I could even when I felt
tired I kept pushing and finally I got towards the end of the race and I
started to recognize where the finish line was going to be and I turned the
last corner and saw the finish line and I headed for it and once I had turned
the corner then I started getting closer to the finish line the crowd started to
cheer they started that cheer loud they must be cheering from me I thought I
must be winning I am going to win this race I will be the champion I thought to
myself as I picked up my pace the closer I got to the finish line
the louder everyone got they were screaming and cheering and I was running
so hard I was looking straight ahead just bounding towards the finish line
then they were screaming and it was like I was famous and finally I sprinted
across that finish line and I was so proud of what I had done and I slowed
down and then I came to a stop and then I looked up to see all of my adoring
fans but they weren't looking at me they were looking at someone else and they
kept cheering and now they were cheering even louder and I could suddenly tell
that they hadn't been cheering for me at all and I looked behind me
to see what they were cheering at and then I saw what they were cheering at I
saw a father who was pushing his daughter in a wheelchair and she must
have had a very bad disease because she couldn't really even hold her head up
but as our dad pushed her and the crowd cheered loud she did her best to wave to
the crowd and she smiled and waved and her dad pushed her across the finish
line he looked very tired and she looked very happy and I I felt embarrassed I
felt embarrassed because I'd been so proud of myself thinking I had done such
a great thing not knowing that there was someone right behind me that was doing
something even better something even harder something that took more courage
than what I had done and I went over to the girl and her father and I smiled and
I said nice job on the race and her mouth moved and it looked like
she was trying to say thank you because I don't think she could talk but the dad
said thank you young man you ran a good race to thank sir I said
then he pushed her away to get some water and I realized two very important
lessons the first one is that even when I'm doing something very challenging
there's always someone that is doing something even more challenging and more
important than that I realized that the world doesn't revolve around me I
thought everyone was cheering from me and that made me feel good I thought I
was the center of the world but that is seldom the case there's a big world out
there and I'm only part of it and I needed to stay humble and think about
other people and not only of myself