You are at an old colleague's leaving drinks, or scrolling through a feed late in the evening, and the feeling arrives before the thought does. A man you started level with has a title you don't have, a house you couldn't afford, a life that photographs well. Somewhere along the way he pulled ahead, and you missed the moment it happened. You feel it as a verdict. He is winning. You are behind.
It is a powerful feeling, and it is built on something that does not exist. There is no track. There is no starting gun, no shared finish line, no official standing you have slipped down. You have compared your position in a race, and the race was never run.
The Race Nobody Started
Being behind requires a course everyone agreed to run. Think about what that would actually take. A fixed distance, a common direction, a start where every man set off at the same instant toward the same thing. None of that is true of a life. You and the man across the room want different things, began from different places, and are measuring by different rulers even when you use the same words.
He has the title. He also has the commute that eats two hours of every day and the quiet dread each Sunday evening. You have neither the title nor the dread. Called a race, that looks like a loss. Looked at plainly, it is two men living two different lives, one of which you have singled out to score yourself against, on a line you happen to envy.
The word behind smuggles in a whole set of assumptions you never examined. It assumes there is an ahead. It assumes ahead is where you should be. It assumes the distance between you and someone else is a measurement of your worth rather than a description of two unrelated paths that happened to cross for a photograph.
This content is only available to subscribers
Subscribe now and have access to all our stories, enjoy exclusive content and stay up to date with constant updates.
Unlock contentAlready have an account? Sign In
