On running your own race

At a dinner party last week with a group of people, most of whom I only knew casually, someone was talking about going to karaoke, and I said, more loudly than I thought, "Fabulous, I love singing." It was one of those moments when the other conversations seemed to come to a natural pause, and the whole group was now listening to me. Someone asked me if I was a singer, and I said, "Yep, I love it. I'm not sure that those around me feel the same, though. But it makes me feel great."

It felt a bit awkward, but conversations restarted, and the evening moved on.

As I got to talk to people I didn't know all that well or overhead other conversations, it came to my attention that there was an opera singer, someone who had studied musical theatre and a rock musician in the group. All had worked professionally or semi-professionally as singers at some time.

I had never studied it, never done it professionally. I'd been in a few local musicals when I was growing up, but it was something that gave me pleasure, not something I was terribly good at it. I could hold a tune but had no technique.

I felt pretty stupid about publicly announcing my singing achievements in front of this group. And it reminded me of a time growing up when I became aware that some things I did for fun were things that others did professionally.

I grew up on the outskirts of a small country town, and we learned to swim in the creek a little way away. Some of my fondest memories are linked to that place and the people who came to swim.

There were rapids we would scoot down on our little styrofoam boards, a small shallow end where we learned to swim, and, beyond that, a large deep area where we would swim and dive into from the bank from the lower ledge or the high one when we were more confident.

I didn't like the river weed much, so at the start of every summer, my dad would go down with a rake, check the shallow pool for snags that might have washed down over the winter, and rake away a bit of the weed.

We swam at the beach each summer on our family vacation, and you could barely get me out of the water.

Then in my first year of high school, my house was looking for people to swim in the annual school competition. No one else wanted to do it, and I loved swimming, so I put my hand up.

On the day, the other swimmers wore very sleek caps and bathers, all remarkably the same and remarkably different from my frilly attire. These were people who trained every day at this pool. Swimming was a competitive sport? Who knew? And I think you can tell where this story is going.

They all finished the 50-metre breaststroke about 35-metres ahead of me. And I had to make that long swim to the finish alone in the pool. I think I held up the schedule for a while because when I got to the other end, a teacher gave me his hand to help me out of the pool. I felt pleased I finished but embarrassed about my performance.

I still need to remind myself that we all have different reasons for doing things. And while I love learning and improving, I don't need to do something to any standard but the one I set. So I sing and swim for fun and how it makes me feel, not to be the best or for my career.

Run your own race and as Mama Cass says, "You gotta make your own kind of music, sing your own special song, ... even if nobody else sings along." And even if I am still not immune from the comparison-itis that can strike when you are least expecting it.

#doonethingdeep #beingyourbest #havingsomefun