Life is not a race!

I woke up this morning (actually just about 10 minutes ago) and I suddenly got this realization: life is not a race. Yes, life is a journey, a personal journey. If so, then why are we getting ourselves into the race with others? I realize that we tend to race with others, see who can graduate faster, get better grades, get higher jobs (and get it faster), more successful, who has boyfriend/girlfriend first, who get married first, child more successful than your child, and so forth... The list will never end.. Even sometimes to trivial matter like I'm taller, his nose is smaller, her mouth is sexier, etc.

When I then adopt the metaphor "life is not a race", I'm suddenly free from all these. My body and mind become more relaxed and I feel so free. Yeah, Life is a personal journey, with ourselves as the main producer, creator, and actor. If we do something because others told us to do so, or so we will looked good, it is still ourselves that do it, and it is our "choice" to do so. After all, Life is a choice, and whether we follow ourselves or others, we make our own choice! All of our actions than, will have consequences that we have to bear, not others. Like the Buddha said," We are the owner of our own Kamma". So, we choose our actions, and we will face all the consequences ourselves too.

Now, having realized that life is a personal journey, the next question to ask ourselves is, where do you want this journey to end? Whether we want it or not, life will end. It could be 80 years from now, 50 years, 40 years, 20, 10 years, 1 year, 8 months, 8 weeks, anytime. Life doesn't send us a postcard telling us our time left is this world is this years and this months. No. Nevertheless, we could devise the ending and walk towards that direction. And of course, the journey itself matter as well.
So think about it, how do you want your ending like? How do you want your journey like?