To Be The Best

I have always been competitive & driven. I was incapable of doing anything half heartedly, I always did my best. Without fail. Whatever it was. I think I always felt that I was good at what I did, whatever that happened to be. The cockiness of youth maybe.

So, at school I was a Senior Prefect and House Captain. When I started teaching I was never satisfied with being just a class teacher. I systematically went for promotion & always knew I wanted to be a Head. Arrogantly, I did actually think that I could be a better Head than any of the Heads I worked for. For a huge part of life I achieved everything I set out to do and never experienced failure.

I still believe that I can achieve anything I set my mind to do. Even now when I am swimming lengths I do actually compete with the person in the next lane! How sad is that.

There is a price to pay for trying to be the best if you are comparing yourself to others or trying to meet the standards & demands of someone else. In my case my mother, who never seemed satisfied with anything I achieved. I paid a high price in terms of the chronic health problems I now have.

So what best does it mean to be the best? With the experience of life & age now I think that it just means to be the best human being I can be now. Never mind what anyone else is doing. Never mind if I fail, so long as I have tried & so long as the goal was realistic & worthwhile. I do now accept that I may well fail, because I don't have the same capacities as I used to. I also finally recognise that failures usually actually teach you something.

We humans need a goal, something to aim for. Challenges often bring out the best in us. We rise to the occasion or the expectation. The Olympics have been a prime example of that. But we can't all be Olympic athletes, we need to make our goals achievable.

Wouldn't the world be a wonderful place if we simply all tried to be the best person that we can be?