It starts with getting the best grades in pre-k, then elementary school, then junior high all the way up to high school. It’s a disease, really, but you thrive off of it. The satisfaction you get from knowing you’ve clawed your way to the top over every other student is fuel for all your ensuing accomplishments. Top-tier success isn’t only worked toward, it’s expected. And when, God forbid, it isn’t achieved-- well, it’s terrifying to even think about that possibility.
Then comes college. And no matter what prestigious prep school you went to, there’s going to be some point in your freshman year when you realize that the overly protective and structured nature of your previous years of education is not even an iota of the intensity of the clusterf**k that college can often times be. You studied for six hours in the library last night? Cool. A dozen other students studied for thirteen. You’re getting an 92 in Calc? The kid that sits next to you is getting a 99 and he never even comes to class. No matter what you do, there is always someone that's going to be better than you. It sounds bad, and maybe it’s taboo to acknowledge that fact, but it’s true.
And it’s a good thing. Michael Dell, the CEO of Dell Inc., said, “Try never to be the smartest person in the room. And if you are, I suggest you invite smarter people … or find a different room.” That’s not to say you should lower your ambitions to feign mediocrity, or worse, apathy. Nor is it to say you mustn’t excel at particular skills.
The quote itself is presumptuous-- it assumes the reader has a certain criteria for overarching intelligence and that said person is the one that has such exclusive knowledge. But, knowledge isn’t one-dimensional, and it isn’t objective. Sure, you may be great in explaining Coase Theorem to a plethora of confused Econ students, but another person certainly may be able to apply it better or more effectively than you. What you can recite about the life of Aristotle may vary completely from someone else’s details, but that surely doesn’t make either of you wrong, or superior to the other.
There will never be someone who you are inarguably and unequivocally smarter than in every mental aspect. That’s the beauty of human nature, isn’t it? A conglomeration of seven billion people in the world, and yet, like snowflakes, no two people in the world have identical strengths and weaknesses. You can, and should, learn something, anything, from every person you encounter-- whether it’s someone you talk to for five minutes in passing or a dear friend whose mental capacity you’ve, intentionally or not, never fully appreciated.
The contest you are competing in, then, is not with the thousands of other members of the student body, but only yourself. Stop comparing yourself to the perceptions you have of people around you. Stop basing your intelligence and self-worth on the success of others. If you can be honest with yourself and know with absolute certainty that you are currently doing your best in all your work, and you're striving to always, always, always improve, that is what matters. That is the competition that requires your deepest focus and determination.
