Lately I’ve been thinking about why I’m so competitive. If you ask anybody who’s been around me to describe my personality in one word, it’s inevitable that the word competitive comes up in conversation.
But more than competing, it’s a love for winning. Because if I simply loved competing, losing wouldn’t hurt my soul the way it does now.
Winning. I remember when winning used to mean winning my father’s approval by solving the equations on our blackboard the fastest. I remember when winning meant staring down my opponent in the pickup basketball game with what my brother calls “crazy eyes.” I remember when winning used to be everything to me.
Like I said before, there’s a difference between loving winning and competing. When I think about young, competitive Nikhil, I picture a scared boy. I visualize my eleven year old self on the tennis court, ball coming at me, my dad watching through the fence, and my hand wavering through the air as I pray the ball I hit doesn’t stray outside the lines. As my dad watched me play everyday, tennis stopped becoming about winning. It became about not losing. No longer was it about hitting the coolest shots or trying the sickest maneuvers, it started to be about not missing, playing safely, and ultimately, not being myself.
There’s this quote by Rafael Nadal (the first one that I pinned on my wall actually) that I found to encapsulate what my eleven year old self was feeling: “Losing is not my enemy. Fear of losing is my enemy.”
For the longest time, I stopped competing out of the fear of losing. I didn’t play ATP tournaments because I felt evading participation was easierthinking about potential disappointment. I became more scared in every math competition. I didn’t tryout for several robotics teams. I thought only of the disappointment of the moment rather than the possible elation. Fear paralyzed me from competing. From winning.
Earlier this year I read a quote that goes: “Your mind is powerful enough to create fear. Imagine what it can do when it creates hope.”
Optimism. It’s hard to look at life optimistically. Perceiving yourself winning from a disadvantaged position is a skill that life is constantly disproving, and yet, it’s necessary.
Over the last two months, I’ve felt this inner competitor in me awaken. Perhaps it’s because I’ve felt more overlooked than before. A little part of it is because I’m becoming more conscious of myself as a being. But I think the biggest contributor to this realization is the fact that, I’ve lost so much in my life, how much more could losing even more hurt?
So during our daily volleyball games, I push myself beyond my mind and shoulder’s limit. In the gym, I’ve been pushing until it feels like my muscles pop. I’ve been running laps around my community. Laps in my head. I’m challenging myself to build. To learn a new skill each day. To compete with the world.
In highschool, I learned that constantly competing created distance between me and my friends. As a result, I stopped competing as much. I stopped treating every opportunity as a way to prove my worth and prove my ability. But a part of me liked the Nikhil constantly pushing himself. I just hated the part which put others down.
But today I realized, I can do both. As I was running through laser tag, I realized a shift in my mindset. For context, I’m a horrible laser tag player. I mean, I don’t think I have ever topped the leaderboard, won a game, or got that esteemed title of Fremont’s “Lazer Master.” And it would piss me off. So today, when we got inside that building, I told myself that I would prove myself wrong. That after years of coming last in tens of birthday parties, I would beat my past self and earn that title. Two hours later I came back with that title three times. And the best part? I didn’t put anyone down while I did it.
Running around in that arena, I was competing with myself. Everytime I screamed at the top of my lungs, I was trying to run away from the Nikhil who was too timid to yell in the past. Each time I sprinted through, I was trying to disprove the Nikhil who stood still in the past. Every time I steadily held my aim, I was trying to reinvent the Nikhil would frantically press the trigger to shoot. Even though we were fifteen people competing against each other, today I was competing against Nikhil Sinha. And I’ve realized that I love competing against him.
I will beat the Nikhil Sinha of ten years ago. I will beat the Nikhil Sinha of last week. I will beat the Nikhil Sinha of yesterday. My name is Nikhil Sinha, and I love to win against myself.