I watched the movie Secretariat and I was going to immediately write a post about it and then was side-tracked. Lately, things seem to run together in my life with so much going on – sometimes it seems like one big BLUR.

The movie of course is a true story about a lady and her horse and is set in the 50’s when of course women in business was really not a thing of the norm.  Women in those days were mainly stay at home moms who tended to housework, taking the kids to school and baseball practice and didn’t venture too far away from that (like June Cleaver from “Leave it to Beaver).

I won’t give the complete storyline of the movie but here is this chick that inherits a farm and a horse from her deceased parents and is getting flack from everyone around her including her husband who continues to be combative about her running off to take care of the farm and wasting her time on this stupid horse. She is such a courageous and determined soul and stands up for herself through all the naysayers around her.

I couldn’t help but notice the gamut of major life changes she goes through including her mom passing away which then led to her moving to the farm to take care of her father with Alzheimer’s and then having to go through his passing. Then, while pursuing her dream of getting this well-bred horse trained and ready to win the coveted “Triple Crown”. She is faced with tremendous pressure from her husband to stay home and be responsible. And finally, the fact that her parents did not have a plan in place if something were to have happened to them (which seems to be the trend these days as well),  and therefore, she was faced with the possibility of losing the farm and the horse.

Yet, even and amid the obstacles she has a dream and nothing seems to detour her from running this race. Not death, not financial difficulties nor the society around her that were used to the standards for women during this era, and not even her husband and brother who continued to fight her along the way.

Every time I see someone trying to keep another human being from pursuing their dream (hope stealers I call them), it really perturbs me. If you think of all the people such as Walt Disney, Martin Luther, and tons of others who were passionate about their dreams and made it through tremendous difficulties and even failures until they finally saw their dream come to pass. When I remind myself of them and hear others talk of their lives, I am once again encouraged to continue on my journey – in spite of what I may encounter along the way.

Life is not about what we lose or what gain, it’s how we run the race. I know, that sounds dumb and cliché’ but it’s true!

Lesson: It’s what we learn in and through the process of life and how we grow in and through it all.