On Being the Best

My proudest podium. Third in my age group, but twelfth overall. My goal, though, was to be in the top ten.

My brother knows me pretty well. I don't do things halfway. When I find something that I like and want to be good at, I really like it, and I really want to be good at it. As in, the best. As in, better than everyone else around me. As in, better than you.

I am (at least for a while) fully committed to that goal. It was the same with cycling, and before that, triathlon. It was (is) the same with personal training. For that matter, it was the same with poetry, academic writing, playing the guitar, playing the piano, even all-around intelligence . . . all through school, I was highly competitive, even though I never really got into sports. I competed at things like having the best score on any given AP Biology test (I set the curve on all of them, by the way) and being the go-to person for help on Geometry homework. I may have been the last chosen for pick-up basketball games, but I was always the first choice for a National History Day partner. And it drove me nuts when anyone in my high school show choir could out-sing or out-play (on the piano) me.

I've tempered my competitiveness in life a great deal, due in large part to my participation in sports (which is still relatively new to me). I no longer derive my self worth from whether or not I had the best sales numbers in a month (which is good, 'cause I never have). But on the race course, in a yoga class, on the pitch? You better believe that I'm gunning for you. Because I am going to be the best one doing this sport thing. And if you're better than me now? Just wait until next season.