You may have heard someone say, "The more I get ahead, the more I am behind." My daughter, Bronwyn, had the reverse concern.
Her brother, Chas, was born May 25, 1986. Bronwyn, was born May 28, 1981. Bronwyn has an inquiring mind and being the older child with a later birthdate troubled her deeply.
I did not know it until one sunny afternoon watching the kids bike and hot-wheel around the plaza near the end of our street in La Paz, Bolivia. Every time Bronwyn, age 8, passed Chas, age 3, on her bike and proceeded half way round the circle again, Chas would squeal, "I am beating you, Bronwyn!"
She was furious. A redhead condition, perhaps. She rode faster and faster to beat him, only to find herself behind again.
Chas was gleeful and Bronwyn was pickled.
After several rounds of this, she shrieked to a stop where I was reading on a shady bench and announced: "I figured it out."
"And what is that?" I looked at her over the edge of my book.
"I figured out how my birthday comes after Chas, but I am ahead of him, older. When I pass him, peddle fast and come up behind him again, it looks like I am behind but I am really ahead,"
She had solved the problem at this circular park and rode off with a face of Zen. When Chas declared he was winning, she gave him a wise smile, and said "Good job, Chas."
I often think of this colorful story as the children's birthdays approach. I asked my friend Sally what she thought about the question of being behind and ahead simultaneously.
She said the problem is thinking in a linear fashion. If you approach life in concentric circles, spirals, or sweeps of a windshield blade, this problem does not occur. She proposed that the root of the problem lies in comparison.
Sally reminds me that the need to compare ourselves with others is a sad human tendency. A root of many evils, breeding envy, lust, disappointment and self-depreciation. And racism.
We cannot enjoy racial equality as long as people need to see themselves as superior to someone else. Racial equity requires us to be on the same playing field, just human beings all trying our best to care for our families, make something of ourselves, and enjoy the American dream.
The lesson being this: Be at peace with who you are. Look with love and kindness to others who are sharing the same life raft. Avoid comparisons and need to self-judge. Be of the moment.
The cedar tree in the cover photo is dead, but is it not more picturesque than ever?
There is just you, beautiful you, and beautiful me, and beautiful them.
Forget about being behind or ahead.
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