Of Difference Races in Life

No, not race as in creed or skin color but race as in the pace of our lives…..

I was driving home a couple of weeks ago and from my right-hand side mirror, I saw this guy furiously riding his bicycle, he caught my attention because of how hard he was pedaling. I continued driving and at some point, he was side by side with me and then he passed me and for some silly reason, I went about going past him, as in I picked up speed specifically to pass him. Now he was paying me no mind, focusing on the road ahead and just pedaling like it was going out of style. By this point, I was unconsciously trying to make sure he didn’t overtake me and after a couple of minutes of this I caught myself and I wondered, “why am I, in a car, focused on being ahead of a man on a bicycle, why am I even focusing on him in the first place?” I then made the decision to stop focusing on him and instead focus on the road ahead of me and was home a few minutes later.

I purposely took time to interrogate what had just happened. That man on the bicycle could have been exercising, he could have been in a rush to go somewhere, he could have been testing out a new bicycle, there are a hundred different reasons he could have been where he was, doing what he was doing, and all we had in common was the road we were on. He did not know me from any other woman on the road. I saw him and turned it into some competition and it occurred to me sometimes we do that in life.

We see someone else, some we know, some we don’t, some average Joes and some superstars, we see them going about their lives, doing what they can at whatever point, for whatever reason and we take our eyes off our road and focus on them. We focus on what we see them doing and we start a competition that is not only non-existent but unnecessary. There is so much of other people’s lives that we do not see and cannot possibly know for us to want to compete with them. Then we want to beat them but we are in such different places, it’s not even a race!

At the most basic level, I was in a car, four wheels, a machine, he was on a bicycle. These two instruments need very different efforts, they go at different speeds and are designed for different purposes. A bicycle can get into places a car cannot, it can maneuver in areas where a car would be woefully inadequate. A bicycle can be an instrument of affordable transportation or an exercise tool but has a limited luggage carrying ability. A car meanwhile can go further, faster, can carry more luggage but it cannot be used for exercise. The person holding each tool can then decide for what they need to use it for. It occurs to me that God created each of us with our own unique tools and gifts, yet, too often we take too much time looking at the tools and gifts that He gave others and we want to achieve the same if not more than those “others”, not realizing that while we all share the same road, that is all the similarity we have.

I wonder what would happen if we focused, almost laser like, on our own road, on the tools we have and do the best with those. There is no harm, in looking at your peers but to pay mind to the fact that they are on a different journey with different tools and are going at a different pace. The race is not me vs you or vs them, the race, and the journey, should me vs me because at the end of it all, when our last day comes, we go alone into our graves and go alone before the Almighty to give account of all we did with all we were blessed with.

I still see the guy on the bike sometimes when I drive, I think he lives in my neighborhood and yes, he is still pedaling furiously each time but I smile now each time I see him because he reminds me, to focus on my own race.