The marathon was on Sunday, hundreds of runners. I was watching, admiring them from my er,  twenty minute run.  One man had dropped out early and  was sitting alone under a tree in the park, looking overwhelmed, still wearing his number. For some reason I felt embarrassed on his behalf, that he had dropped out so early. I didn't say anything, kind of looked away, maybe to spare him embarrassment?
But then he was kind of laughing, like a huge weight off his shoulders.  Personally I hate races..  to me happiness is dropping OUT of races not trying to WIN them. I know a certain amount of competition is great, motivating.  But the 'burying the opposition' mentality makes me really uncomfortable. At university there were trumpet high note competitions (by the way nothing to do with music) . And studying classical music, the strict syllabus was like a strait jacket ..  I couldn't breathe.. just wanted to  break away, find my own voice, be free, create music, a different sound.  To me people are all just unique individuals. Great art and competing, for me they clash like art and money.
 I know nothing about this exhausted man under the tree. Maybe it got too hard. But  maybe he is a workaholic, has barely seen his family recently, had an epiphany, realised it's just some dumb race. That can be very freeing..  :)) Racing against yourself is brilliant, what hopefully the marathon runners are doing.  Winning the race is a triumph. But we are not all wired the same!!  Some of us work much better when we drop out of the race.