Jeff Bezos is no better than you and me
On luck, effort, and the beauty of running
I used to be a runner. Well, I suppose I still am. Once a runner, always a runner. But these days my left knee is killing me, I’ve gained some weight, and I miss those runs I did six days a week. No walking. Just running.
My wife used to ask me: “Why are you running? Why the hell are you running?”
I’d give her the usual platitudes. “It’s my me-time. It’s exercise, good for my health.” And of course, the obvious: “It’s my midlife crisis!”
That last one always rings a lot of bells.
Here is what I figured out: when I run, the outcome is mine. The result is the effort I put in. No politics. No noise. No one else. Just me and the road. Just my effort. Sure, sometimes the weather is shit. Or my stomach is a mess. But mostly, I get out what I put in. And that’s the beauty of it.
When I think about the deeper stuff - what life is about, what the point is, I always come back to this same idea. Life is about the struggle, about doing your best with what you’ve got.
The sad truth is that we don’t reward people for doing their best. We reward outcomes. We reward value. That’s fair I suppose, in our market economy. That’s how the system works.
But I have traveled a bit and I am sure you have as well. And I’ve seen the hardest working people in some of the poorest countries in the world. They work so much harder than any of us white-collar workers. You know it and I know it.
And you can be born without the greatest brainpower or without access to a good education. But does that make you less worthy than others?
Then there’s luck.
Look at the giants: Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Sam Altman, Tim Cook, Steve Jobs. Major brain powers, sure. Work(ed) their ass off, definitely. But they also got lucky. Luck is such an important piece of success that successful people don’t acknowledge enough.
So why do we worship people who got lucky or had innate talent or the right education? Why don’t we respect those who work their damnedest hard?
That’s why I keep coming back to running. The point of life is the struggle. The point is to show up and do your best. That is the only measure that matters. That is the only thing you control.
You may not be the smartest. You may not be the luckiest. That does not make you less. It does not make you less than Jeff Bezos.
If you work hard. If you give your best. If you use what you have. Then you have already won. That is the part that is in your hands.
And that’s what I think.
