I have always liked driving fast. Perhaps I inherited the trait from my father, who is also famous for his lead foot. Maybe it’s a result of my competitive nature, or the fact that I’m always in a hurry. For me, it’s more than just driving fast, however—I like to drive faster than the other cars on the road. If I’m passing everyone on the road, I must be making good progress. It gives me a sense of accomplishment. For this reason, I take particular issue with drivers who sit in the fast lane, oblivious to those of us who wish to pass them, leaving us no choice but to weave in and out of traffic, passing them on the right.
Recently, I was racing from work to an afternoon appointment, doing my usual efficient (some might say obnoxious) job of passing everyone on the road while cursing the cars sitting in the fast lane. I was making good time, and felt certain I wouldn’t be late. I exited the freeway, only to have my quick pace impeded by a red light. As I sat there, tapping my fingers on the steering wheel and anxiously awaiting the green light, I glanced over at the car next to me, only to see that it was the very same car I had zipped past at least five minutes earlier on the freeway.
Bemused, I smiled at the thought that all of my hurrying, speeding, lane changing and passing, had afforded me nothing. I had assumed I was far ahead of everyone I had passed on the freeway—but that great equalizer, a red light, had halted my progress—bringing my erstwhile roadway companion and me to the exact same point at the same time.
The roadway of life, particularly a singer’s life, offers many similarities. How often do we judge our own progress in relationship to how fast, or slow, those around us seem to be moving? We look at the accomplishments of others—older or younger, and with more or less experience—and then either feel good about the additional things we have done that put us ahead of them, or beat ourselves up for all of the things we haven’t yet accomplished that place us far behind them.
Perhaps if we could see farther down the road, to the inevitable stop signs, red lights, traffic jams, or road construction, we wouldn’t be so quick to evaluate our progress—or other’s progress—based on our current mile marker on the roadway of life. Likewise, we cannot foresee the green lights or the express lanes that might also lie in our path.
Often, as we watch colleagues take the fast track to stardom, it can seem that having a successful singing career is but a matter of chance—if the stars align, if it’s in the cards, if it’s meant to be. Such uncertainty can be maddening!
Before you have your palm read or start reading tea leaves, however, read Arden Hopkin’s article “Aptitude Test for a Professional Career in Singing.” He offers a useful tool to help you determine your own potential, an evaluation based on you, not those around you.
Evaluating our own progress effectively can require, at times, tuning out others’ perceptions of how fast or slow they see us moving on the roadway of life. Coloratura soprano Elizabeth Futral, this month’s cover story, never reads her reviews. Instead, she consults with trusted individuals she knows will give her an accurate evaluation of her performance and her progress.
Since that first experience of ending up at the stoplight next to the car I assumed I had left in the dust, my eyes have been opened to just how inaccurate my sense of being ahead or behind can be. On the roadway of life, the faulty perception of progress based on the position of those around us is more than merely amusing, it’s detrimental.
On both the literal and figurative roadways of life, let us strive to base our sense of accomplishment not on how many others we pass in the fast lane, but rather on our own individual mile markers, always keeping in mind that stop signs or expressways may be just around the corner.
