High Hurdles

Did you see this video during the Olympics?

This is a video of Jeffrey Julmis, a competitor from Haiti, running in the semifinal heat of 110 high hurdles. He fell at the first hurdle, and yet he gets up  and keeps running.

From the story at sbnation.com:

Julmis mistimes the first obstacle on the course, crashing hips first into the hurdle, and tumbling head over feet into the second one. His race was over, but he didn't let that stop him. Instead, he took a deep breath, composed himself and cleared the final eight hurdles to join the rest of his heat at the finish.

His anticipated goal was impossible to achieve. He couldn't qualify for the finals; he couldn't even officially be placed in the heat because he ducked under the second hurdle in the fall, but he got up and kept running.  

To me, this is perseverance. This is continuing to run the race. Why do that? Why run the rest of the race, and how does anyone run the rest of the race and jump over all the other hurdles? 

Because that's what a "winner" does. That's how a driven person operates. It was't the success Julmis intended, but it was success.

When we fail, do we stop? Do we give up? Or do we stand up, take a deep breath, and press forward. Normally (for me, never) are we running a high hurdles race, and sometimes getting it and moving on means switching paths, but perseverance means not staying on the ground in defeat. Life does through high hurdles at us, and sometimes, we fall down, face first, onto the ground. What's the next move after that?