Barren | ✓

b r o n z e

no one remembers the man who ever came second.

first rule of the rat race.

you compete to be the best, not better. that's the only way you can break surface from the never ending swarm of people trying to reach the top.

but what if you don't want to be part of the race?

what if you want to create your own track?

it's not a discouraged thought but it's a track no one trains you for.

it needs determination, girth, street smart and a passion to carve a legacy for yourself.

sadly enough, nobody supports you here.

the overachievers are all clubbed under eccentrics or failures, whichever one deems the fate of their endeavours.

if you end up on the opposite side of the grass, you're hailed a genius. if not, well... you're considered insignificant.

as children we are often taught to handle and deal with success.

no one teaches you to deal with failures. and what you are unprepared for, you are inadept to handle.

as a child, i excelled at everything i put myself at task to. academics, sports, music, creatives, drama, you name it. my parents dedicated an entire section of the house just to hoard my merits and certificates and trophies and plaques.

i was the best at everything i did.

my parents always told me that there was no place for anyone who ever came second.

hence second had no place in my dictionary.

i completed my masters with honours, landed the job of my dreams with a salary people spent years trying to touch and i managed to climb the rung of senior management at a very early stage.

things were as good as they can be.

last week, we had a college reunion commemorating the golden jubilee of the establishment.

i got the chance to meet several faces that i'd left back in the race of coming first.

the experience was anything that i was expecting it to be.

what i assumed would be nobodies (like they were in college in terms of achievements) were sufficiently successful themselves.

some were entrepreneurs, some were mid-level managers, some were running successful businesses and some were completing doctorates from pronounced universities.

hell, some completely changed fields and were doing pretty decently too.

obviously there were some who couldn't make the cut but those were few.

that night, i couldn't find any sleep.

i kept mulling it over and over again. if success is guaranteed to everyone who tries enough, does ranking really help?

sure, ranking gives you a sense of superiority and gives a lot of people a better push in life.

but it's not like nobody remembers the person who comes second.

in fact, and at the cost of deep grief, he seems to have done better in life with his current standing than i have.

so why do we even stick to rankings?

it's good to be an achiever, even an overachiever. but the prestige that people associate with it seems to be shallow.

at the reunion, people seemed to remember me as the guy who would always come first. the scholar of the class, the go-getter.

but people remembered other faces too.

for instance, the mischief maker who would always flunk exams was a successful entrepreneur today and had his own e-commerce subsidiary coming up.

the introverted girl who would talk to no one was today the face of a successful business model.

the gang of 5 friends who were dubbed useless by the entire batch had ended up as senior level managers at high demanding companies.

nobody was surprised with my achievements anymore.

it was the others who ended up getting more limelight and interest.

it was as though my trajectory was flat for the world.

he's always been that way, what's new about him achieving more?

but damn, can you believe these doofuses managed to make it big and how!

it was strange, really.

i worked my entire life to ensure that my achievements never fell short.

and yet they seemed to have fallen short by my own benchmark.

i certainly was first and the best at everything that i did even today.

only, the best had no number anymore.

it was now up to you to make the best of it by being there at the right place at the right time.

🥉

- a first ranker rediscovering the rules of success

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