Modern life is like competing in a professional car racing series
I’m a big fan of motorsports. I’m also a fan of philosophical thinking and developing thoughts that help me navigate modern day life both in my career and at home. While watching a recent F1 race it dawned on me that modern life has many similarities to competing in one of motorsport’s top racing series. The F1 racing series consists of a number of races that happen all around the world throughout a year. In general, the teams and drivers are the same each year as well as the tracks they race on. Sounds like all teams have to do is figure out how to tune their cars for each of these tracks and the drivers to master driving them and they’ll be set right? I mean, after competing for several years with these 3 factors essentially being constant you’d think it’d be predictable and boring. However, despite the repeated nature of these aspects of the series, each year is uniquely different and the results are by no means guaranteed. Each year teams and drivers are constantly upgrading themselves and adapting to different circumstances affecting the sport, such as regulation changes and finances.
So how is that like modern life?
When I think about life and its fundamental building blocks, I see a set of repeated situations strung together in a random sequence that ultimately make up our life. It is like the same race tracks being driven repeatedly year after year in racing. Relationship situations can be your Monaco race track, financial situations can be Singapore, and career situations can be Imola. You get the point. The “teams” in life generally remain the same, think friends and families of every individual human being, and just like in a F1 season, regulation changes (eg. societal changes) and finances can affect the outcomes despite things largely remaining the same.
So that makes us race car drivers, so what?
In order for race car drivers to be successful and repeatedly win championships they need the following:
- A good team to provide a car and all the emotional, mental, and technical support needed to be competitive
- Dedication to investing in themselves by keeping in top physical shape because despite what people may think, driving a modern race car is physically and mentally taxing
- Dedication to constantly improving their skills and learning from experiences acquired in previous races
- Being able to quickly adapt to situations that can develop during the race. Think mechanical failures, mistakes/aggression by other drivers, weather, etc.
Don’t those sound like things that can help a person navigate and ultimately live a good life? I know it’s cliche but modern life can be pretty fast paced these days as you often need to constantly jump from one thing to another. It can be like racing between different turns of a race track and the need to navigate each as fast as possible. My thought is that if I’m effectively “racing” through life then perhaps adopting an F1 driver’s perspective might be helpful in navigating and maintaining control of my life.
Things that may not seem related may actually hold the keys
So what was the whole point of this post? The point is that it can be helpful sometimes to adapt a different view and break life down in a potentially non-intuitive way in order to find clarity and even potential solutions to life’s challenges. It speaks to the 4th point noted above, where one of the keys to “succeeding” in life is to be able to adapt. The way I approach developing my ability to adapt is to keep an open mind and look for things that may not seem related at first but upon further thought may actually be helpful in solving a challenge.
I hope sharing this thought may be helpful to others as we all try to navigate the increasingly dynamic world we live in.
Originally published at http://realtimerevisions.com on July 18, 2020.
