The Red Queen Effect: Why Standing Still Means Falling Behind

I was making great time through TSA PreCheck, barely breaking my stride. Then, suddenly, everything stopped.

Three lines were funneling into one conveyor belt where people placed their bags in bins. One line kept moving while the other two stood still. People in the dominant line weren't being aggressive or cutting; they were just stepping forward whenever there was an opening. The rest of us were waiting, assuming someone would regulate the flow.

Without even thinking, I blurted out, "Hey, there's more than one line here."

A woman in the dominant line turned to me with a sharp look. "Yeah, I know, we've been waiting."

Her frustration was real. She believed she had been waiting longer, so she deserved her spot.

I rolled my eyes and turned to the man in front of me, who was hesitating, unsure if he should step forward. "I'd just go, or you'll never get a spot," I told him. He moved quickly and made it through.

Life doesn't reward the patient. It rewards the proactive.

The people in the dominant line weren't breaking any rules. They were just moving when there was an opportunity. Meanwhile, others stood there waiting for permission that was never coming.

There's a concept from Alice in Wonderland that captures this: the Red Queen tells Alice, "it takes all the running you can do, to stay in the same place." In biology, it describes how species have to keep evolving just to survive, gazelles get faster, so cheetahs have to get faster too, and if either one stops adapting, they lose. The same rule shows up everywhere else. Businesses that stop innovating get overtaken by ones that don't. Professionals who stop upgrading their skills become the person nobody thinks to call. Parents who don't update how they show up lose touch with kids growing up in a genuinely different world than the one they did.

The man in front of me at TSA thought he was being polite by waiting his turn. He wasn't wrong to be polite, but he was missing his opening while other people kept moving. That's the part that gets me: most people who fall behind aren't lazy, they just don't notice the treadmill is moving under them until they're already behind on it. The hardworking employee waiting to be noticed while other people ask for the promotion. The founder who spends years perfecting an idea nobody's seen yet, while someone else launches something rougher and improves it in public.

I think about this most as a parent. My kids are growing up on a faster-moving version of the treadmill than I did, and I have to actively resist assuming that how I was raised is a reliable map for how to raise them. The technology is different, the social pressures are different, and the temptation to just repeat what worked on me is strong precisely because it's easier than paying attention.

There's no permission slip coming, for any of it. The people who got through TSA fastest that morning weren't smarter or more deserving. They just stepped forward instead of waiting to be told it was their turn.