Just Swim In Your Own Lane

I earned a 32 on my first physics midterm.  My parents urged me to switch majors …

I trudged up Science Hill to ask my professor, Michael Zeller, to sign my withdrawal slip …

‘Why?’ he asked.  He received D’s in two of his physics courses.  Not on the midterms – but in the courses.  The story sounded like something a nice person would invent to make is least talented student feel less dumb.  In his case, the D’s were clearly an aberration.  In my case, the 32 signified that I wasn’t any good at physics. 

‘Just swim in your own lane,’ he said.  Seeing my confusion, he told me that he had been on the swimming team at Stanford.  His stroke was as good as anyone’s.  But he kept coming in second.  ‘Zeller,’ the coach said, ‘your problem is you keep looking around to see how the other guys are doing.  Keep your eyes on your own lane, swim your fastest and you’ll win. 

I gathered this meant he wouldn’t be signing my drop slip.

‘You can do it,’ he said.  ‘Stick it out.’

I stayed the course …

The author, Eileen Pollack, went on to become one of the first two women to earn a bachelor’s degree in physics from Yale University, graduating summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, with honors.  She is currently a writer, essayist and professor at the University of Michigan. 

This excerpt from her article – Can You Spot the Real Outlier?  – Professor Pollack addresses the issues behind the lack of female professionals in the sciences and mathematics. 

Two of the points that she makes, as to the reasons behind this, stood out to us, in particular.  One is that many women have traditionally never or rarely felt encouraged to pursue their interest in, passion for and capabilities for science and math.  Their gifts have not been honored.  The second is that too often all of us, female and male, tend to compare ourselves with others.  Usually unfavorably.  Often to our own detriment.  It is this point that we want to highlight today.

Just swim in your own lane.

Eileen Pollack’s Yale professor’s advice was good.  Her professor’s stories about losing too many swimming races, caused by him paying too much attention to his competitors, contained wisdom worth sharing. 

We witness it all the time.  As we listen to people share their stories and open up their struggles, we often hear them comparing themselves to others.  We hear them measuring their accomplishments and achievements in relation to what others have done.  We hear them judging themselves adversely – critically and harshly – because others appear to have accomplished more, gained more, are more popular and more in demand, have done better or have finished ahead of them in all sorts of ways.  

And when we do that we nearly always lose. 

We see others, for the most part, only from the outside.   We cannot read their minds or know their private fears or understand truly how their experiences have shaped them.  We don’t hear their inner monologues, live with them during every moment of their days and nights or know just what all of their struggles are.  We make our judgments based on relative surface level observations and perceptions.  But those observations don’t tell the whole story and those perceptions may not ever come close to the entire truth.

Our tendencies to compare ourselves with others are often based on wholly incomplete evidence that mostly elevates others’ abilities and diminishes our own.  We tend to focus on our own perceived faults, weaknesses and imperfections, fueled by our fears and insecurities and our culture’s bent toward finding what is wrong instead of what is right. 

Those tendencies fail to recognize that we all struggle and that we all are challenged by loss, uncertainty and pain in our lives.  Those tendencies fail to acknowledge our own personal gifts, gifts that are inherently ours to cultivate and celebrate.  All of us are uniquely and wonderfully made.  All of us have matchless abilities to offer.  All of us contain greatness and unparalleled capacities. 

Staying in our own lanes – focusing on those gifts and capacities are what will enable us all to win the race.  But this race is not against any thing or any others in this life.  Instead it’s a race for joy, contentment and peace, a race toward the prize of called love, especially for ourselves.

Photo by Richard R. Schünemann on Unsplash