The Morning Walk

One fine morning, I decided to heed,

My doctor's advice, who believes I need,

Some exercise, so I decided to go,

For my morning walk, something he had said a long time ago.

But barely a few steps I had taken,

By an elderly man, I was overtaken.

Remarkably fit for someone his age,

He nonetheless left me in a fit of rage.

How dare someone twice as old as me,

To race ahead have the audacity.

Embarrassed, I increased my pace, only to find,

Somehow or the other, left behind.

Unused to exercise, my two poor feet,

With his, sadly, couldn't compete,

Turning green with envy, watching him have all the fun,

I stopped walking and started to run.

Finally, racing ahead, I turned around to face,

This gentleman, triumphantly, having won the race,

But my jubilance turned into horror,

Watching he remove the earphones from his ears and take a detour.

As it turns out, he had reached his destination,

Oblivious to my undeserving attention,

While I still have to walk several miles on the road,

To reach belatedly my humble abode.

Exhausted, as I trundled, I couldn't help but wonder,

I had committed a Himalayan blunder,

Had I focussed simply on my amble,

I would have saved myself a hell of a lot of trouble.

In life, we are bound to be at different stations,

It is easy to succumb to the lure of competition,

But if we compete with ourselves instead of with others,

We will achieve our goals sooner and be much happier.

We are all horses galloping on the track,

Who cannot and should not look aside or back,

And finally when we remove our blinkers,

We'll realize we have no competition; we are on a different track altogether.

"To be a champion, compete; to be a great champion, compete with the best; but to be the greatest champion, compete with yourself."