Fess up, y'all. You are currently entered in a couple of secret competitions with others, except they don't know that they're in these competitions with you. Don't lie. You know what I'm talking about.
These competitions can cover a wide range of events. Perhaps you are secretly racing the car next to you (until they turn at a street prior to your destination, in which case you win by default). Maybe someone's reading the same book as you, and lo, you finish first. Or maybe you are secretly battling to get better test scores than that one student in your class. Maybe there's a new intern at work, which bumps you out of the "new employee" position, so you secretly compare your first few days to the intern's first few days to see who would win a "best new employee" competition. (For the record, I also competed in a secret "best new employee" competition, and I SO WON.)
I am competing in dozens of secret competitions at any given moment. I lose, a lot, but luckily for me, since the other person is unaware of these tournaments, I usually save face. And I don't have to congratulate them on their victory, because they don't know about it. It's kind of a win-lose situation for me (lose-win?).
Anyway, this blog post is brought to you by a recent victory of mine. I have been competing against "Person X" (for the sake of anonymity and to keep this secret competition secret) for a couple of years. The thing about this competition is that we are very similar people, with very similar hopes and dreams, with very similar thought processes. Person X has beaten me in this ongoing competition at nearly every turn. Curse you, Person X. But finally, for what I believe to be the first time, I BEAT PERSON X. I examined something created by Person X as objectively as I could, and then it hit me: Person X did not deliver at Person X's usual standard. And I compared my own work to Person X's work and to me, it was clear: I was the winner. To my knowledge, I was growing and stretching and trying, and Person X was stagnant. After years of just trying to measure up to Person X, I ultimately surpassed.
Is Person X aware? No. Would I ever tell this to Person X or try in any way to make Person X feel bad? Never. Is this really healthy for me to do be doing all the time? Er, probably not. But all these secret competitions make me push myself. We could argue that comparison is a really dangerous thing to do, but I like to think that I've got my competitive side somewhat under control, to a somewhat healthy degree. Sadly, it's difficult to celebrate these triumphs because no one really knows what I'm talking about, but knowing in my mind that I "won" makes me happy. And that's why it's good that these victories are secret.
I would never, ever put someone down or be so vain as to inform someone that I'm better than them, because Lord knows how often I actually lose these secret competitions. I just try to use them to better myself in my personal life and use it as the push I need to strive to be the best I can be. And this little victory march that I've been doing for the last day or so sure feels nice, like a little reward to remind myself that I don't need to be so hard on myself all the time.
This is not meant to be a mean post, or a nanny-nanny-boo-boo post. This is meant to share with you all the sigh of relief I finally felt I earned after striving for so long. I feel like I put myself down so often in my own head, like I try to hide any talent I might have in fear of hurting others, that it might be nice for a change to just-- you know?
This is not meant to be a mean post, or a nanny-nanny-boo-boo post. This is meant to share with you all the sigh of relief I finally felt I earned after striving for so long. I feel like I put myself down so often in my own head, like I try to hide any talent I might have in fear of hurting others, that it might be nice for a change to just-- you know?
Apologies for the rambling. Looks like I wound up doing a bit of insightful soul searching without meaning to. I win!
