Growing up, I was … fat. Not a little chubby, I was round. The fact that I was large shaped (no pun intended) my interactions with the world. I was never the stylish kid, never picked first for sports teams, never part of the “cool” crowd, never on the inside. I didn’t have a particularly rough or terrible childhood, I was just always aware that I was on the outside.

When I was younger, physical education in schools was a fact of life. From kindergarten through 8th grade I had PE twice a week. All of you have been a part of a PE class. They always include some sort of running, or playing, or competing. Not things that us round kids were generally good at. PE class was always painful because I was slow, slightly uncoordinated, and sweaty. Consequently, most of my elementary, middle, and high school years were spent struggling to keep up with those who were physically faster than me. If I’m honest, I’ve always been just trying to keep up.

In a sense, we are all trying to keep. Most of us aren’t running races or playing tag everyday, but the effort is no less intense, and the competition is unique to the individual. Your race may be to stay in your class’s top 10, hustling to have the hottest kicks, posting constantly in a hunt for likes, changing your speech patterns to fit in with a group of people, or competing for a teacher’s attention. In some way, all of us are always chasing someone or something.

Because we are all, in some way, fighting this daily fight; I would like to put forth the idea that the people surrounding you are the single biggest determinant of your success. At this point I am sure that there are some of you that want to lash out and declare that you are your own person and that no one other than you determines whether or not you will succeed. That impulse is a good one. It shows that you have the desire to succeed. Still, the people around you matter. Think about it like this ...

Imagine for a moment that you are a fish. As a fish, you’ve spent your whole life in the water. You have no idea that you are wet because water is all you’ve ever known, and you have no idea that another world exists just beyond the surface of the water because you’ve never seen it. Unless something came along to pluck you out of your pond, you would never know of anything other than what you’ve always known, and it would be impossible for you to imagine anything different.

All of us are like that fish, and the people and environments that surround us are our water. They are the realities that surround our bodies, fill our lungs, influence our actions, and color our dreams. We can never know what else is out there unless we are somehow lifted above our little ponds. One of the only forces capable of opening our fishy little eyes are new people and the experiences they bring. To move out of our water we need people who are beyond us to show us a better way.

My career as a teacher has been spent in the pursuit of educators who are better than I am. I have worked hard to make sure that I am continually surrounded by the best teachers and most innovative educational thinkers and sought summer opportunities that expose me to unfamiliar fields and skills. Being around these people continually puts me back in the position of my young, fat self who was always just trying to catch up. This time, however, I’m trying to catch the fastest, which means that I’ve begun running faster than most of those around me.

There is one more component of pursuing the best that bears mentioning. Like I’ve already said, whether we are conscious of it or not, we will always try to catch up to those around us. If you want something better for yourself, then you must surround yourself with the best and you MUST be willing to learn from them. If you are unwilling to learn, be stretched, be humbled, and be pushed then you will never make it above your water. Spending time around the best is useless if you aren’t teachable.

So, ask yourself, what is your water? Are you submerged in a group of people that are forcing you to run after good things, or is your water flowing in directions that will lead to your demise. Remember, we are all fighting to keep up. If you want to be the best, you must surround yourself with the best. Each of us should strive to become uncomfortable the moment that we realize that