Not Your Race

I am a competitive person. I abhor the idea of playing a game and not keeping score. If there is a way to win, I will find it. If there is even a way to CLAIM a win, I will attempt to. Which is why riding my bike the past few weekends has proven to be an interesting change of pace. When I ride my bike in NYC, I usually head over to the West Side Highway bike path and ride North along the Hudson River. The path there is just wide enough to pass slower bikers or joggers without scooting over into oncoming traffic. And when I ride, I tend to pass a lot of folks. Even more now that the CitiBikes are out and people who haven't ridden in NYC are doing so for the first time in a long time.

And sometimes, I get passed. Usually by guys in spandex with bikes that cost more than my first car. At first, being passed bothered me. They were beating me was my default thought process. They were going faster and they were winning. But then I considered, did the people that I passed think the same thing? Was me zooming past them in the realm of consideration that I was winning? Of course not. And neither were the guys zooming past me thinking that they were beating me. It wasn't a race. We were all out there for different reasons with different levels of equipment and training and health. Even though we were all doing the same activity, an activity that by its very nature showcases speed, strength, and distance, we were not riding with the same end game in mind.

I am in San Francisco this morning and I've been thinking a lot about the technology scene and industry and how it too isn't a race.  There are countless ways that you could think that someone was passing you or that you were falling behind, but that isn't a fair race to ride because we are all coming into it with different equipment, skills, and teams than everyone else.  And, if we are all smart, we are all riding for a different end game than everyone else. An end game that is ours and ours alone. I'm not talking about an exit or the cover of FastCompany or some other moment in time goal, those can't be the reason we are all riding as hard as we are. The reasons have to be bigger, otherwise you won't enjoy the downhill that comes after you powered through the grind to get to your momentary peak.

When it is all said and done, most of life isn't a race against anyone else but ourselves. Everything that we are building has to be worth it for our own definition of a win, not for anyone else's.