If there is anything I have learned over the past four days while I spent every free moment watching the Lord of the Rings Trilogy (I may or may not have snuck a viewing of The Hobbit in as well) in order to get some introvert time, it’s that the story of Frodo and his companions is extremely relevant to the life of a World Racer. He goes on this journey that brings him through so many emotional ups and downs, it teaches him that the world has its evils, but not to despair because there is still some good in it, and that once you set out on a journey that monumental, there is no going back to who you once were.
The first movie of this trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring, has some striking similarities to the beginning of the World Race and a young and innocent Frodo Baggins is also reminiscent of a green World Racer in the beginning of their eleven month long journey. Frodo sets out on his journey not really understanding what a colossal expedition he has just agreed to embark upon. He was innocent and ignorant to the evils of the world he was about to see, but as time goes on, Frodo begins to understand that the world that he imagined is not exactly how it really looks.
When I first started the World Race, I romanticized it in my head and thought it was going to be this easy thing that was eleven months of playing with kids, shoveling dirt here and there, and maybe changing a little bit in the process because I would be more cultured. Little did I know, I was setting out on this incredible journey that would change me significantly, show me that there are bad things in this world, show me how much the Lord really loves and cares about me, and just basically rock my world so much that I don’t even know which way is up anymore.
Something that Gandalf says in the first movie is some really good advice for any new Racer: “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.” When I first began my Race back in January, I was ready to see how I could fix things in other countries. I was the stereotypical American who thought that my ways were better and more efficient than everyone else’s. I quickly realized that I could waste my year trying to fix everything and getting nowhere, or I could just be and love the people I was with and learn from my contacts and my team. I had the power to decide if I would fight against everything I encountered on the Race, or if I would embrace new things and become a new person.
I also should have listened to Gandalf when he said, “Do not be so eager to deal out death and judgment, even the very wise cannot see how it ends.” I was so ready to judge everyone that I came into contact with and assess what they were doing wrong and tell them the correct way to live their lives. Some new Racers tend to have the mindset that they’re hot stuff; that they’re awesome because they’re sacrificing a year of their life for a good cause, when in reality they’re about to receive so much more than they could ever imagine giving away. The Race is ironic in that sense.
The last parallel I want to draw between this movie and the beginning of the Race is that in the beginning of Frodo’s journey, he sets out with a group of people who he trusts and who he asks for advice and follows, but at the end of the first installment of the trilogy, he decides that he can do this journey on his own. On the Race, we spend a lot of time with our teams and very little time alone. After a few months, I started to feel like I didn’t need my team as much anymore and that I could do this thing on my own because I had learned all I could from them. When I started to pull away from my team, I also started to pull away from the Lord, the whole reason why I started this. I would say that I didn’t fully buy into my team until month five of the Race because I believed that I didn’t need them as much as they needed me. Through all of those months of me not buying in, the Lord was like Sam at the end of the movie, where he runs out into the lake to catch Frodo because he knows that he can’t face the world on his own. God pursued me so hard in those beginning months of my Race because if He hadn’t, then I would have fallen flat on my face from trying to do everything on my own strength without Him.
Stay tuned for part II coming soon!
