I have two daughters who are swimmers.   I spend a lot time at swim meets.   The girls work very hard practicing four to five times a week.   I recently heard a story of a girl who took first place in an important event.   After the event she walked up to the official – A few minutes later the scoreboard changed and her name was removed.   The chatter died down, and what had occurred was that she disclosed an inadvertent rules violation that the officials either did not catch or deemed too minor to flag.

Some of the parents chattered, “Why would she do such a thing?   It obviously wasn’t a big deal to the officials and didn’t affect her time.   All that hard work.   Why give up first place over a technicality that didn’t really matter?”

It occurred to me that this girl had gone rogue.   She wasn’t just going through the motions.   She had obviously trained very hard. She of course wanted to win.   But something else was more important to her.

She understood that it’s the process in life that matters most. Everything else – all the doing – all the results – exist only so there can be a process.   There would be more races.   There would be more victories.   But they would be short-lived. There would always be another race, another champion, another possibility for results.   But there was only one her.   And how she acts through it all creates who she is. She shouted to the world that she was creating herself as a person of integrity.

She understood that winning is an act of doing.

Taking responsibility is an act of being.

Doing is temporary.

Being is forever.

Cut the Crap: Doing and results are what matter in life.

Bring in the Change: Process is what matters. It’s our tool for self-creation.

Timothy Velner is a husband, father, attorney and author living in Minneapolis. You can follow his daily blog – a series of discussions between the worry-self and the present-self at – thespiritualgym.me