“Every person should be treated like an opponent,” my son told me

Today, on my forty-third birthday, I went for a twelve-mile run with Max, my almost eighteen-year-old son. He’s the oldest of my four kids.

We chatted the entire way. It was a lovely run, notwithstanding the dry air of Palm Desert, where we are spending this weekend. We’re both runners. I was a running enthusiast and introduced Max to running. Then he told me I could become a good runner if I lost weight and tried hard — which I did. We supported each other in our running journies!

We discussed many topics — sports, running, life, and business. Max thinks a lot about his future life and career as he approaches college and adulthood. He’s been asking me many questions about my past choices and mistakes and our relatives’ lives.

“Every person should be treated like an opponent,” he told me. It sounded ominous, but he didn’t mean it in an evil way. His point was that you can’t be soft. You shouldn’t be living your life thinking about how to help everyone on your way and be friends with them. Ultimately you’re competing with everyone.

It’s an interesting topic. I can admit to being “soft” in many respects. My empathetic mindset helped me resolve a lot of crises, but it also contributed to my failures.

It made me think back to our basketball games a few years ago. Max is a runner now, but a few years ago, we had a stretch when we were into basketball. We’d go to a local park in Cupertino in California…