Life is not a race

Wisdom from a 6 year-old, and top regrets of the dying

Five years ago, I was driving across the Bay Bridge, with a 3 year old and a 6 year old in the backseat. Soon, Jackson (3) piped up, “Mama you have to drive faster, people are passing us!”

From the other car seat, Alina (6) responded,

“It’s ok Jackson, it’s not a race. Everyone’s going to different places. Just like life.”

What in the world was happening in the backseat of my car…

I think back to Alina’s wise words often.

Jackson was touching on something we all experience, the desire to try to keep up with those around you. In this case, he was literally trying to keep up by the most obvious comparison of speed.

In my years of working in the tech industry, coaching leaders in tech, and talking with friends, there’s an all-too-common fear of being left behind, of moving too slowly. In the world of startups, an industry in which some people are on rocket ships while others are cruising down the road, these feelings can be pretty intense at times. Inject a heavy dose of randomness into whether or not your vehicle is going to transform into a rocket ship, and you’ve got a situation extremely ripe for fomo and what-ifs.

I’ve certainly experienced this myself.

When I was building out my coaching and leadership development businesses, I remember looking at other people’s busy schedules — they seemed to be flying all over the country most weekends to conduct workshops. My life with kids kept me mostly in the Bay Area, with the exception of a handful of engagements. What would my business have looked like without family travel constraints? 

Or what would my career look like without 3 maternity leaves and the demands of young children, and with the time and space to work nights and weekends? Or what if I had responded to the right recruiter emails or joined specific startups? 

Everyone has these thoughts to different degrees. Many years ago, a coworker recited the five opportunities he had missed out on that would have likely made him a multi-millionaire. They seemed to weigh heavily on him as top life regrets.

But if life really were a race, what would even be the finish line? Without being intentional about it, it can feel like career success — some combination of money accumulated, title, prestige, and impact — is the thing we’re racing towards. 

It’s easier to distill someone’s life down to their career progression, especially if you barely know them. There it is right on LinkedIn! I guess social media would be the analogous view into their personal lives, but the Instagram version of people’s lives is hardly real either. It’s easy to imagine that if only you made X amount of money, or worked at Y company, you would be happy. Money can certainly alleviate a lot of problems, but there are plenty of people who work at Y making X (or much much more than X) dollars a year who are miserable.

On our deathbeds (I guess we are actually headed to the same place after all), most people aren’t thinking, if only I had made more money, or if only I had spent some time in an executive role. Comparing career success, or stalking your former classmates in their new roles on LinkedIn, is like watching cars speed past you on the highway. It’s the most obvious thing to compare yourself to, but for most people, it’s probably not the most important.

According to palliative care nurse Bronnie Ware, the top five regrets of the dying are:

• I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

• I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.

• I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

• I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

• I wish that I had let myself be happier.

Given these top regrets, it seems downright silly that our comparative minds hone in on career success as a key gauge of life progress and happiness. 

For some people, a fully expressed and courageous life lived true to oneself might involve a specific career path. But for others, it may have very little to do with their careers — or perhaps their careers allow them the space and financial means to live their full lives. It might look like having loving relationships and an outlet for creative expression. Or it might look like caring for their family.

Instead of comparing ourselves to others in such an arbitrarily specific way, what if we were intentional in aiming for the things that are important to us? What if we let ourselves be inspired by the people around us living the most courageous lives and found ways to live ever more courageous lives ourselves?