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Every watch track and field event s in the Olympics? It is easy to stare at the track just before the starting gun fires and wonder how the runner poisoned all the way out in front in the outer lane of the track does not have a huge advantage. Intellectually, we know that all the runners most run the same existence, but visually our eyes seem to deceive us. That so called lead is called a stager and it men tot even the distance on and oval track. In a 400 meter race, there is a gap of about six meters separating each runner.
But, of course, everyone know that there is not advantage, physically t being all the way in the back on the inside. You have to run the same distance either way. Yet the appearance of advantage can be a powerful psychological edge. Doe the gu out in front think he is got the lead? Does that give him a boost of confidence or perhaps take away the tiniest fraction of his drive?
It might feel like the civil servant is all the way in the back, lagging behind the field and it might seem like the Wall Street executive has set himself up for a strong finish but that is the illusion, not the reality. No one is ahead.
There is no first place or last place here. Life is not a competition. Often people use money and the acquisition of things to measure where they stand who got the nicer house, the fancier car, the summer home in the Hamptons. But the truth is, we cannot predict how long we will live or the state of our health as we age. The readily is, it does not matter where we start. It is how we finish that counts. Here is not seemed that all of these lifelong friends were headed on the right directions, each o his own terms, in his own time. That is one of the reasons they left as happy with their lives. With a little disciplines and foresight, they all had a shot at winning the race they ad started together, all the way back in nursery school.
The same can happen or you. It does not matter where you stand in relation to your friends, your family, your colleagues or clients. All that matter in your personal journey. It is tempting to look at others as yardstick and convince yourself that you are all the way out in front with the appeared of a lead or resign yourself to the back of the pack. But that is not the point. The race of life is a marathon, not a sprint. The only thing to do is focus on the path in front of you. Look added. Establish your own pace. Keep moving forward. And then create that plan.
The only person you should try to be better than is the person you were yesterday.
