Personal development types often recommend we associate with people who are better than us. It’s supposed to help us learn and grow. In principle, I agree with this. In practice, I have struggled with it.
For example, when swimming next to faster swimmers. As I alluded to recently–and for the record, I’m not proud of this–when I swim at the gym, I tend to get pretty annoyed when the swimmers next to me are faster than me (which happens about 3/4 of the time). The automatic reaction in my head is something like this, “Dammit, why are they so fast? Why do they got to make me look bad? They’ll think I’m weak, they’ll think I’m dumb, they think they own me.”
The feeling is: insecure, frustrated, uncomfortable, worried.
You’d think I was trying to avoid domination! These kinds of thoughts feels appropriate for an eight-year old, perhaps, but I’m not sure they befit me as a grown man who fashions himself to be on the enlightened side of things 🙁
Mind you, I always keep this reaction to myself, other than telling my wife. Also, I am getting better at tolerating the “shit sandwich”* in life, that is, the good with the bad. When it comes to swimming, I know that in order to get the benefits of swimming, I have to accept also the not-so-pleasant parts.
Swimming alongside faster swimmers is the not-so-pleasant part. I have no pretense of knowing how to swim well, yet it still bothers me that I seem to be such a slow swimmer.** I wonder if it is something I learned in childhood, thinking that I had to “win” in order to be good enough. Recently I have gotten in touch with childhood programming, in which I felt a strong desire–or compulsion?– to best other kids in athletics as much as possible. In grade school, although I wasn’t always the best in the playground, I was among the top when it came to football, kickball, basketball, and–a recess-yard favorite–screen.*** To be fair, this was often quite fun. It helped that I was well-coordinated and also a good runner (notably, this confidence did not carry over into doing sports in my teens.).
I felt no competitive advantage from swimming, however. My mom, my siblings and I did a lot of swimming at the neighborhood pool, and often this was quite fun, but I never really got the hang of any kind of pool-based competitive games (nor can I really remember any, if you don’t count Marco Polo: that says something). I witnessed my mom enjoying relaxing lap swims. That was nice.**** I also remember seeing my brother moving along gracefully in the pool and being intimidated, thinking, “Wow, that kid is fast!” I was not naturally good at swimming nor all that inclined to get good at it, but that did not stop me from beating myself up about it.
Long story short, I came out of childhood with many good memories of athletics and being athletic, especially when I did well, but a mixed relationship with competition that, in light of my swimming experience, now seems rather neurotic. Since my marathon experiences, I have been examining my psychology, especially when swimming. Overall, it’s been helpful to look at this topic. Despite it pushing my buttons, it usually works out fine over all.
There could be another wrinkle to this. Sharing a lane with a faster swimmer can be a little unnerving, especially as they come up on me from behind and pass. I can feel a little rankled by the close proximity to someone when there’s no direct interaction: “This person here doesn’t even acknowledge my existence, and they have the nerve to pass me up and make me look bad, like I’m nothing. It sucks! Why can’t they at least be nice to me?”
The feeling here is: uncomfortable, guarded, resentful, worried.
On the flip side, a bit of interaction goes a long way. The other day, since the other lanes were all taken, I offered to share my lane with the woman who had just arrived. She was sincere as she said, “Thank you very much.” This meant a lot to me, and though I found myself annoyed (surprise surprise) as she blazed past me repeatedly, the short interaction beforehand took the sting off.
I’m not saying this is a completely healthy response, either, but I know that both childhood dynamics around competition and personal boundaries play into this. All in all, I am hopeful that over time I will change my conditioned responses to other swimmers. I think this will help my interactions with the world at large.
Meanwhile, old habits die hard.
*To use Elizabeth Gilbert’s term from her book “Big Magic.”
**Maybe some day I will train to become a faster swimmer. Right now, I’d rather see if I can work on my psychology about not having to be the best.
***The point of screen, I believe, was to kick the ball at the baseball backstop and send it as far away as possible, leaving the other player to do the same, until one of us missed the screen. There was a variation on this, played against a free-standing grey brick wall installed in the recess year. That game, naturally, was called “wall.”
****I probably got my swimming style–relaxed and mellow–from her, even though the competitive mindset stuff makes relaxation challenging.