Competition never seems to leave your side. From your earliest years, you are expected to be the best player on the soccer team or the smartest student in math class or the most creative person out of everyone you know. The necessity of being the “best” is drilled into your mind, into your being. Because anything less than first place is never good enough.
In elementary school, it was all about whether you scored high enough on the diagnostic math test, which placed you in the Honors Math class, thus separating you from the rest of your peers and placing you into a group of students who just happened to show a little more understanding of the subject. In junior high, the separation between students grew - you were either an Honors student, taking all of the “higher level” classes, or you were a “regular” student, taking classes at the usual expected pace of students your age. Once you entered high school, believe it or not, the separation between you and others grew even more. It wasn’t just about the level and difficulty of classes you were taking anymore; it was now also about who played on which sports team - whether you were on varsity or not. Or about how many clubs you were a part of and out of those clubs, whether or not you held a leadership position. The academic ranks ventured out to who had the highest SAT/ACT score in your graduating class. If one person did something unique, you had to do the same, but better. It grew from having to be the best at one thing, to bending over backward to prove that you were the best at everything. And if you couldn’t be the best, you became just another addition to the sea of “average” students.
This continued until it was time to apply to college. Where you applied, the major you applied for, the schools that accepted you, and the university you ultimately decided to attend solidified your “worth” among your peers and parents. For the students in the Bay Area, it was all about the UC schools. And if you decided to go out of state, the only schools that really “mattered” were the Ivy Leagues. By this time, your placement on the spectrum of “bests” was concrete.
Expectedly, the competition didn’t stop once you entered college. It grew. Can you believe that? In college, you are separated by your majors. Engineering majors always have their nose in the air (I was, hypocritically, guilty of this). The ranks trickle down to business majors, science majors, art majors, and so forth. The fact that there is an unsaid rank of majors is particularly sad and frustrating.
As if that wasn’t already enough, you also have to be the best within your college. You have to make it to Dean’s List to prove your intellectual abilities. You have to bring new organizations on campus to show your leadership qualities. You have to stack up on as much research and internship opportunities to give people the idea that you have your life together and that you are better off than them. And all of this leads up to the job you get after college or which graduate program you decide to attend. This goes on until you can show off the size of your house or the make of your car. The cycle continues until it’s time to show off your kids and how you’re the best at raising them.
This meaningless competition of being the best goes on until you take your last breaths. And even after you are gone, your accomplishments and failures are talked about. People claim that the competition is what pushes them to strive to be the best. And I’m sure it does. Finding inspiration from someone to better yourself as a person, or athlete, or student, or whatever it is isn’t a bad thing. But when it comes to the point to where you see nothing other than competition to just get ahead for the sake of it, you are not living anymore. You are not living for the purpose of learning, or for the purpose of pure enjoyment, or for the purpose of struggling to overcome something. You are only living for the name and title of something that is merely a tag. And that needs to change. But will it ever?
