I'm off to race around the world - a race against time and two

The journalist and adventurer Dorothy Kilgallen, with fire in her heart and courage in her pen, once declared: “I’m off to race around the world — a race against time and two men. I know I can beat time. I hope I can beat the men.” In these words shines the spirit of a woman who dared to challenge not only her rivals, but the world’s expectations of her. Her statement, both bold and poetic, is a cry of defiance from an age when women were told to stay within the quiet borders of domestic life. She stands here as a symbol of determination, audacity, and faith in one’s own power—the eternal voice of one who refuses to be defined by limits.

The origin of this quote reaches back to 1936, when Dorothy Kilgallen, a young reporter for the New York Evening Journal, entered a daring competition. Alongside two male journalists, she set out to race around the globe using commercial transportation, each determined to complete the journey in the shortest possible time. Her challenge was not only against her fellow competitors, but against the ticking of the clock itself—against time, that ancient and undefeated adversary. The words she spoke before embarking on her journey were both prophecy and promise: she would battle the relentless passage of hours, and also the pride of men who believed a woman could not equal their endurance.

Her phrase, “I know I can beat time,” reveals not arrogance but conviction. For to beat time is to rise above the ordinary rhythm of life—to live with purpose so fierce that each moment bends to one’s will. Time, that silent judge of all humanity, favors no one; yet there are souls who learn to master its flow through passion and discipline. Kilgallen believed herself to be one of these. Her statement is not simply about travel—it is about mastery over circumstance, about daring to move faster, farther, and more boldly than anyone believes possible. And she was right: she completed her journey in just twenty-four days, beating one of her male competitors and earning her place in history.

But in her second phrase—“I hope I can beat the men”—there lies a deeper, more human tension. For here speaks not the competitor, but the woman facing a world that still doubted her strength. In 1936, women had only recently begun to claim their place in the public arena. To compete equally with men was an act of rebellion, to triumph over them an act of revolution. Kilgallen’s hope, spoken with humility, conceals the immense weight of her courage. She represents every woman who has ever stood at the threshold of a challenge, burdened by both the fear of failure and the longing to prove herself. Her race was not only across the globe—it was across centuries of limitation.

History remembers others who shared her spirit. Amelia Earhart, a contemporary of Kilgallen, set out to fly around the world and paid for her dream with her life. Both women lived in an era that demanded proof of their worth, and both faced time not merely as the passing of hours but as the relentless tide of history. Where Earhart raced the winds, Kilgallen raced the rails and oceans; both sought to carve a place for women in realms long reserved for men. Their triumphs remind us that courage is not measured by victory alone, but by the willingness to challenge fate itself.

Kilgallen’s words also speak to a truth far greater than gender or competition: that life itself is a race against time. Each of us, in our own way, runs the same race. We race to fulfill our dreams before the sun sets, to create meaning before the sands of our life run out. To “beat time” is not to live longer—it is to live deeper, to fill the fleeting moments with purpose so radiant that time itself seems to pause in respect. And though none of us can truly defeat time, we can outshine it through passion, through excellence, and through the mark we leave behind.

Lesson and Practice:
Do not fear the race. Whether your challenge is against the world or within your own soul, run it with the spirit of Dorothy Kilgallen—with boldness, with humor, and with hope. Know that to race against time is to live consciously, to awaken each day determined to do what must be done. Compete not out of vanity, but out of love for life’s brief flame. And when doubt whispers that you cannot “beat the men,” or the odds, or the world, remember that the first victory is already yours—the courage to begin. For as Kilgallen’s words still teach us, the clock will always move forward, but so too can the human spirit—and in that sacred motion lies the only triumph that truly matters.