The unlikely Catalyst, Competition

Competitions.
Ask any student of this city, they'll tell you how tough the competition in academics are these days. 

And often times, it's very discouraging when you work hard to pass or top your studies and then end up failing, barely passing or not becoming a topper.
Sometimes, it's almost expected of us to choose smaller dreams just because of the state of competitive exams. We're always bombarded with the feeling of inadequacy and that's very disheartening. It's painful to know your best wasn't good enough.

Recently I was reminded of how we would compete with everyone about everything, besides tests, back in school....walking, writing notes, eating, being the most popular and so on.
People love to compete. And some people only live for it. Without it, their life becomes incomplete.

It's good to have achievements. It's good to aim for the top. It's good to want to improve your skills and talents.

But what I've seen is that people base their self-worth by the results they get in a competition. I've fallen prey to this stupidity too.
I used to feel so insignificant whenever I lost and felt superior to everyone whenever I won.

Some other lame-os used to cheat to make it on the top. And that just makes us feel worse about our honest failures.

This is life. This concept of winners and losers is so uncertain. The situation can change overnight sometimes. All it takes is one step, one chance or one right move....and? You've made it big.

Especially when we lose, we claim the winners had an unfair advantage. And you know what? That could be true.
People of all kinds have different things holding us back or giving us privileges in various ways that do make tests seem so unjust. But that's a reality we need to understand, there's no one platform in which we're all the same no matter how much we try. (though it's a great ambition)
Starting from the bottom is different for everyone. So is how easy or difficult it is for individuals to achieve the same task.

Though that even isn't the attitude we're supposed to have in a competition.
Competitions propels us to higher levels of our abilities. It gives us the motivation to do better. Having good competitors makes us feel like working harder. It's fine to take competitions seriously but not so seriously that you get extremely stressed out and forget everyone participating are humans... Flawed yet amazing, hidden with unknown potential and greatness.
Everything isn't a competition.

Like, yeah, you are going to eventually going to get better at what you do regardless. But there's something about competing with others that pushes the rate at which you grow.
It's sort of like a catalyst.
But it can only be a catalyst if you see it that way.

Don't let your success or failure determine your worth. You are precious regardless.