Cheers in the New Year

A few weeks ago, I got to participate in the Dallas Marathon. And by participate, I mean I stood still and watched and cheered.

We love the location of our new (old) home in Dallas, but we discovered on the day of the race that our street was inside the marathon loop, and we’d be hemmed in for the duration. In an effort to make it to a workout class located 3 blocks outside of the route (requiring a Frogger-esque roadway crossing), I walked in the direction of the route and began hearing shouting and cowbells akin to the hometown bleachers of a football game.

For those with more marathon experience than I, please forgive my naivete. The coolest sight unfolded. Crowds lined both sides of the block holding signs, sitting in soccer chairs, shaking noisemakers, and generally doing everything possible to encourage the runners as they topped the hill and descended down the path. It was clear that a few folks were looking for a specific runner to cheer. But more strikingly to me was the fact that many cheerers had seemingly no personal connection to the athletes. Looking more closely down the block, I saw several yards with full-on tail gate gatherings with tables of food, speaker systems, and pom poms. All convened to celebrate and encourage total strangers.

Let’s think about that.

Running 26.2 miles is ridiculously hard. Running 13.1 is still unattainable for most. And as fellow humans, we gathered to cheer, celebrate, and encourage others doing hard things.

How great would it be if we took this “we cheer for total strangers who do hard things” mindset into the rest of our lives?

A person who lost their job

A person who just had to bury a loved one

Someone whose family has shut them out

An exhausted single parent

A person who has to choose between buying groceries or paying their electric bill

A person who feels alone

A person who lives with someone they’re afraid of

A person who recently made a big mistake in life

A person cloaked in anger striving to hide their inner insecurities and fear

Everyday, people facing hard (and often invisible) things cross our paths. Maybe the person facing hard things is us. How can we create a world in which it’s routine to look up from our races and find… encouragement, kindnesss, patience, empathy, grace, cowbells, pom poms.

In this season of gratitude, reflection, and resolution, I’m going to try harder to cheer for those doing (perhaps invisibly) hard things. Inevitably, some days I’ll need a cheerleader of my own.