Whose RACE is it anyway?

Whose RACE?

 

Exams were around the corner, and I had only one target in my mind, to beat Salewa’s result this time. Salewa was the brainy of the class, but that wasn’t just it, she was beautiful. Salewa was such a social fly that I always wondered how she did it. How on earth was she able to maintain such balance? I asked myself. Meanwhile, I refused to admit that I didn’t want to be friends with her because I was jealous. Anyways that aside, the battle line was drawn, I was out to show Salewa this semester that someone could top her in class, and that person was gonna be me.

It was time to study. I spent hours awake at night reading till my eyes went sore, I decided to take a sneak peek at what Salewa was up to in her room, I tiptoed to her room down the hall, and peeped through the curtains, she was snoring. Hmmm, that devilish grin, I’ll top the class this year, just this once, to prove a point.

Exams were over, the results were out. Salewa made a 5 point GPA and me, a 4.85 GPA. To say I was sad was an understatement, she did it again, was all that kept ringing in my head. I walked to the hostel down casted and gloomy. On my way, I could hear voices screaming my name, ‘Nneka, you’re a bloody genius, u made straight A’s except for one course, efiko o’, what are these dudes screaming about, I’m a total failure, Salewa beat me hands down again. I was so sad; I spent the rest of the day brooding over nothing.

They both had the same grades didn’t they? Does it matter what points it was? Bottom-line, they were both in the 1^st class bracket, right? Plus, Salewa was living her life without the slightest idea that she was in an unknown race with an unknown competitor? Isn’t that what happens in life when we focus on competing with colleagues, friends, neighbors, church members, family members, trying to prove we can be more successful, when in reality nobody really cares. We lose our happiness over nothing, whose race is it anyway? Don’t we all have our destined paths? No matter what we try to do there would always be someone prettier, smarter, and richer, with a hotter husband or wife, more successful than us, so why try to outdo others? Shouldn’t this be blamed on inferiority complex? WITH UNHEALTHY COMPETITION, COMES A NEVER ENDING CYCLE.