The Race was Never the Point...

by Manoj R. Kodachwad

  

About a year and a half ago, I became the father of a beautiful baby girl.

Since then, every day with her has felt magical in its own way. Time seems to move differently now, faster somehow. She is growing up quicker than I can fully take in, and I often find myself wishing I could pause these little moments just a little longer. 

Whenever people meet us, one of the first questions they ask is, “How old is she?”

At first, I thought it was simple curiosity. Over time, I realised the question often led somewhere else. Soon the stories would follow:

"My baby started walking at 11 months."

"Ours began crawling at just 6 months."

"She started speaking before she turned one."

"My baby eats everything on her own already."

And just like that, parenting quietly turns into a race nobody officially signed up for.

For a while, I found myself paying attention to these timelines. Not because I wanted to compete, but because comparison has a subtle way of creeping into your mind. One moment you are happily watching your child grow, and the next you are wondering whether they are somehow behind.

What surprised me most was how easily these casual conversations could plant doubt in a parent's mind. A child who was perfectly fine a few minutes ago suddenly becomes a collection of milestones waiting to be measured.

Over time, I learned to stop measuring my daughter against other children and their timelines. Instead, I began paying attention to the moments that never appear on parenting charts.

The way she laughs at the same silly thing every day.

How she calls out to me first thing in the morning.

The excitement in her eyes when I walk through the door after work.

The way an ordinary evening can become a memory I know I will miss someday.

Those moments may never make it into a developmental milestone chart, but they are the ones that matter most to me.

I have also come to realise that comparisons often come from two very different places.

First is when some people look into your cup to see whether you have enough. They do it out of care, concern, or shared experience.

Secondly, when others look into your cup simply to check whether you have more than they do. 

Unfortunately, we encounter the second kind more often than we would like. 

The interesting thing is that this doesn't stop with parenting. As adults, we simply exchange one set of comparisons for another. 

People ask questions that seem innocent on the surface but often serve as a way to measure where you stand in life's invisible ranking system. 

Are you married? How many children do you have? 

Did you buy your own house? 

How much do you earn? What position do you hold? 

Which car do you drive? 

Which foreign vacations have you taken? 

People often ask what you do so they can decide how much respect to give you. We may not admit it openly, but many of us spend our twenties, thirties, and forties running races we never consciously chose to enter. 

And the finish line keeps moving. 

Once you get the job, there is a better job. 

Once you buy the house, there is a bigger house. 

Once you achieve one milestone, another appears waiting to be chased. 

Somewhere along the way, we become so focused on keeping pace with everyone else that we forget to ask whether we are even running in the right direction. 

Perhaps the questions we ask each other should be different.

Are you happy? How is your health? 

Are you able to spend time with the people you love? 

Do you feel content with the life you are building? 

Do you sleep peacefully at night? 

Because in the end, life was never meant to be a race against other people. It is not a competition to see who walks first, earns more, buys a house sooner, or collects the most achievements before a certain age. Yet somewhere along the way, many of us begin treating life like a scoreboard. 

We measure ourselves against strangers, friends, colleagues, and even people we admire online. In doing so, we often miss the very things that make life meaningful like the quiet family dinners, the laughter of a child, a conversation with a parent, good health, a peaceful night's sleep, and the simple comfort of knowing that the people we love are close by. 

The truth is that no one remembers the race as much as they remember the moments. Years from now, I doubt I will remember exactly when my daughter learned a particular skill. What I will remember is how she held my finger when she was learning to walk, how she laughed at things that made no sense, and how quickly these precious days slipped by. Maybe success is not about getting somewhere before everyone else. Maybe success is simply being present enough to appreciate where you are while you are there. 

Perhaps the most liberating realisation is that life is not asking all of us the same questions. We each have different circumstances, different dreams, and different definitions of what a good life looks like. The danger begins when we stop listening to our own answers and start grading ourselves against someone else's scorecard. 

Whether you are married or single, a parent or not, wealthy or still figuring things out, the goal is not to keep pace with others. The goal is to build a life that feels meaningful to you and to appreciate it while you are living it. 

Because in the end, nobody remembers who was ahead. 

What remains are the moments we experienced, the people whose lives we touched, and the peace we found along the way.

 

The race is never the point. The moments are.