Coming in Second Place
Last spring I got a phone call mid-run. I couldn't answer it because I didn't think I had the current lung capability to talk. (I'm not that good of a runner). So, I made note of the call, finished my run, and then cooled down thinking what I would say as I called back. I was expecting the call and I knew returning it was going to be of the utmost importance. Walking outside I pressed the phone to my sweaty ear and called back. To my relief, I got to leave a message. I placed the now greasy phone into my hand and walked back to my dorm. I got a call back from the same number, I paused nervously before answering. My heart pounding again after cooling down, and then suddenly it dropped.
The call I was waiting for was regarding some news that would have changed the course of the rest of my collegiate career, and possibly my graduate school career. I got good news during that phone call, but it wasn't the life changing news. That went to someone else. Immediately a conflict in my brain began. Part of me was hearing the charitable lessons my mother would reiterate to me as a kid, "offer it up, you don't know the full situation" the other side of my brain went straight into the competitor mode that leads to nothing productive. I kept thinking over and over how much I suck. I thought about all the times I didn't get want I thought I deserved and how it didn't matter how hard I worked I was never going to get what I deserved because that's the way my life was just gonna be. I stubbornly finished off the day thinking that I had come in second place.
I, and most, can be quite a sore loser. Maybe it's the competitive high school I attended that pushed us to expect nothing but the best from ourselves, or maybe it is just innate. Whatever it is when I win 2nd, I feel terrible. I don't mean getting 2nd between two teams, I mean ranking anything but 1st.
In my opinion I think it's really good to be competitive. There is a drive that comes with having a competitive nature that allows for you to dig deeper into your work to reach your goals. However, sometimes no matter how hard you work things will not come out in your favor. You won't get the job, the date, the dress, or the news you want to hear. When that happens, well that really sucks. There's nothing you can really do either in that moment. You feel the drop in your stomach, maybe a little warmth pooling in your eyes, and the urge to contest the situation thinking maybe if you fight a little harder you can get the outcome you really want.
Remember when you were little and first learning math? You learned that 4+4=8 and 4+5=9. No matter what you did you couldn't make 4+4=9, and that wasn't something you could fight or contest that was just plain and simple fact. Maybe it was just me, but when I learned this, I didn't get it. I didn't get that it's not that someone decided that 4+4=8, it was because plain and simple it equaled 8. When you come in second, it is not because someone decides that you don't add up, it's because you are 4+4 and that doesn't equal 9, and someone else is simply 4+5. (Please tell me this makes sense to you and not just me, it might only make sense to me.)
What I mean by all this elementary math is that force and pain does not change the outcome of the things you wish you got, you just weren't meant to get them. Your summation is not the summation they needed, and that doesn't mean you are lesser or not the summation that will be needed another time.
Plain and simple you will not always get first place, and you will not always get second place. Even if it feels like it in the moment that you've never won anything, think back really hard: you have and you probably will again.
So, what did I do when that phone call made me feel like I came in 2nd, or when I got a 3.588 instead of 3.6 so I didn't make the dean's list, or when I didn't get the role, or when I didn't get the date. I got angry. I probably cried. But, I kept trying, because eventually the equation will equal 8.
