What’s Wrong with Second?
“What’s wrong with being number two?”
I think when you watch enough competition... you hear a bronze feels better than a silver. How can third be better than second? What’s wrong with being number two?
I assume this is because, in most tournament-style competitions, the bronze medal goes to the winner of the semi-finals losers' match while the silver goes to the loser of the winners' match.
I don’t think the focus is that the bronze medallist is made to feel like a winner from the final match compared to the silver medallist. Maybe it’s because the silver medallist knows he was closer to the gold than the bronze medallist was.
For a long time, when people asked me what my favourite number was…I replied 2. It became 13 after I immigrated to Canada because I learned people here believed 13 was unlucky.
Nowadays, it’s 2 and 13 when it comes to occasions of choosing numbers.
For most forms of competitions, I’ve been no.2 more often than I was no.1. My team placed 2nd in multiple tournaments in hockey. I was 2nd multiple times in powerlifting competitions. I was 2nd in my high school class and there are many more seconds in smaller competitions. Very few firsts.
Because I got second so often, I wondered if it was because I liked the number 2 and I was subconsciously placing myself in that kind of situation. It sound ridiculous when I write this out but I genuinely wondered if my favourite number stopped me from winning.
It also meant I had many photos with a team or by myself after just having lost in the finals. I still remember arguments that would brew up in the locker room if a teammate felt good about a silver medal and how some would say it was disgraceful. This isn’t an odd behaviour.
Frankly, it’s common commentary from spectator’s of most sporting events. There are all kinds of anecdotes about how no one cares about second place and only the winners get the trophy etc…
If I ever picked a side, I would be on the side that says participation ribbons or not keeping score in competition is a complete waste of time and a dangerous precedent. However, I think it’s worth thinking a little about whether anything is wrong with being second.
Whether being second really is worth any shame and negativity. If being second should be equally celebrated or sought after.
My mother actually thought the Canadian media had a great attitude towards it. How we support and applaud all our Olympians regardless of what colour their medal tends to be. I’m sure there are some folks that do not but I got the general sense everyone is celebrated. I think being an Olympian alone is an achievement that should be equally celebrated and I got the feeling this was the case from the media.
This is not the case in Korean media where it’s more “Gold or bust” mentality. I haven’t lived there for a while so I might be out of tune so keep that in mind. However, with my bias, I am inclined to believe that when the media upholds that attitude, the population will be influenced by it too. Which came first? I don’t know. It’s more of a vicious cycle.
It’s true that history is written by the victors, for the victors. But most things I experience in life won’t be winner take all. Most aspects of my life where I’m in the top two places will mean something amazing. To be the second place in anything is quite remarkable really.
Being second doesn’t discount one’s effort and process.
There is another school of thought that believes competition in itself is stupid and one should not even be trying to compete. Peter Thiel is a big proponent of it and by definition, the best businesses are monopolies because they don’t compete. Big difference between second and first place there…if there even is a second place.
But really….for most parts of your life….what’s wrong with second?
Absolutely nothing. Maybe this means I’m soft or lack a killer instinct. I probably do lack such an instinct. But being second only felt wrong when a spectator chimed in.
It reminds me of Theodore Roosevelt’s speech about the man in the arena:
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
Second place is earned by those in the arena. It’s a place one earns and there is nothing wrong with it. But that’s something one will have to come to realize by themselves.