I grew up in a small town, where it didn’t take a whole lot to shine out because there wasn’t much for competition. The classes were small, teams were even smaller, and everybody knew everybody. But even still, I was never the best. At anything. I flailed around on the basketball court, trying to get my hands on the ball and then throwing it away as soon as I touched it. And I spent countless hours in the bathroom mirror, contorting my body to see how many fat rolls I could find. Occasionally I would spend thirty minutes out of my night studying my history notes, and celebrating when I got anything higher than an F on my math test. And it was always frustrating to me because everyone else could put in the same amount of effort and turn every head in a room. So I pouted, and I sulked, and I gave up all hope of ever being the best.

Except, I learned about extra effort at a young age because I had to work a lot harder to keep up with the competition. And I hated it. Why couldn’t I have a natural talent for anything? Anyways, having to exert extra energy into everything I did helped me weed out the things I was not passionate for. As a result, I wasn’t active in very many things but invested all of my time and energy into those that I was passionate about. I spent the better half of my high school career focused on showing horses.

I showed a consistently inconsistent four-year-old horse who spooked at everything green, blue, orange, red or any color he could see from the show pen. I frequently wanted to punch him in the face, cry, scratch every class and go home, but usually I stayed and got disqualified for broken patterns and random four-year-old temper tantrums. But I’d always come back for the next show guns a blazing and ready to try again, only for the same result.

When I wasn’t riding horses I was playing basketball or rehearsing speeches for FFA. During the three years I played basketball, the ball was nothing but a hot potato and I often missed the entire backboard when shooting the ball.

It’s all good, it’s all good.

When I finally threw in the towel on the game of ball, I started taking my speeches a little more seriously. I’d write a deadly persuasive speech and then recite the whole thing by heart so many times that my own family members could probably recite the whole thing too. Somehow I’d still be halfway through my presentation and completely forget where I was at, so I’d stand there with my mouth opening and closing like a dumbstruck fish until someone could tell me where I left off.

It was frustrating, but my competitive personality wouldn’t let me do anything less than try again. I was riding the fine line between skinny and fat, and I was intelligent but not exactly smart, I was outgoing but totally socially awkward and I was over analytical about almost everything I did.

Now that I’m a junior in college, my career future is getting a little more serious. Trying to sell myself in a challenging and competitive industry is almost impossible when you have nothing to show. People want to know my successes, the medals and awards I’ve won and the titles I hold. But I have none of the above. I still have major successes, and things that I am proud of though, don’t get me wrong.

I made it to state 4H horse show a few times in high school, showing the youngest-greenest horse in every class and I almost made the finals. And at a collegiate horse show, my three-year-old mare completed an entire pattern without having a psychotic meltdown. I’ve trained every horse I’ve ever owned completely by myself and I have screwed up many times along the way. I’ve learned from all of my mistakes and progressed from them. I’ve always been open-minded to constructive criticism and people tend to notice my excessive amount of determination.

Where I once used to hate that I was always the underdog, I now take pride in it. Because when I try to sell myself to people, I can sell them this- I know how to lose, a lot, and still shake the hand of my winning competitors. I know how to keep fighting on when every bone in my body is ready to give up. I can take credit for my mistakes because I’ve used them as a lesson learned. I am independent, self-motivated, I don’t need anybody to hold my hand. I respect the value of success because I’ve had to work so hard for it. I can take pride in a completed pattern with no meltdowns because it’s the little wins that make the big ones. And most importantly, I’ve always been the underdog and I’m still here fighting. So when push comes to shove, and it will, I’ll be the strongest one because being strong has always been my only option.