You’ve been running behind the others for the entire race. Always looking for that perfect moment to dive in to the corner and take the lead. Calculating, planning, scheming… if only that other guy would make a mistake. If only you could be that other guy in the lead.
Perhaps the problem is you’ve been running the other guy’s race.
On the next lap try something different. Drive your own race. Set your own pace. Determine your own destiny. Be yourself instead of what you perceive others want you to be.
Maybe you’re on the wrong racetrack.
Find your own track and you may just find your own win.
Another great little essay. Too many people, myself and my wife at one time were in a career to please others, usually our parents. The true break out people in the world, such as Steve Jobs truly ran their own Race. Paul Newman literally ran his own race, when the studio told him not to race. The world is less bright without these two geniuses in it.
We can all be great inventors, promotors, actors, or race drivers. But we all have something that puts a smile on our face and pep in our step when we do or think of it.
For me, I always loved photography. But I had a hobby of electronics and Ham Radio and that was the future. So the plan was for me to go to electronics school. I did, graduated in the top of my class and entered the working world. But it was always work, the joy and curiosity wasn’t there.
Then through a life changing event I picked up the camera again. I was a computer technician with several professional Photographers as clients. They picked my brain about computers and I picked theirs about photography.
2 years later I met Laurie who’d become my wife. She was in computer component sales, very good at it, making great money, but missing that spark. She too loved photography and was a natural at sales and creative posing. 2 years later we opened a studio. Our friends didn’t understand, we weren’t photographers, at least we didn’t go to school for it. But after a rough start we had a very successful 15 year run, until health issues on my part forced us to close.
It was never a job. When we went on vacation or had a rare day off, I still photographed. It was my true passion. Something I truly hope to get back to.
So yes, find the Race that fits You in this Rats Race, and like Sinatra, Run it Your Way!