On Top of the Mountain

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On Top of the Mountain 

                It’s always easier and more fun to keep working and pushing yourself to your limits to accomplish a goal when you have someone you’re gunning for.  The excitement of catching them and taking them down provides an extra fuel and boost in motivation and energy that wouldn’t otherwise be there.  For some reason, attaching an enemy or foe to a goal raises your morale.  On the other hand, it is much more difficult to be the person in first place, constantly holding off your opponents coming from below.  One would think that you would have extra confidence, glory and joy from being the best, but in reality, it is a disadvantage.

                Oftentimes, sports coaches will tell their teams, “Play to win; don’t play not to lose!”  What they mean is that people usually perform better when they are aggressively fighting for their goals, instead of trying to prevent others from doing so while you hang on to the top spot.  However, in many situations, this is not possible.  In many circumstances in life, being in first forces you to only be worried about staying in front of your competitors.  I can tell you from experience that it isn’t nearly as fun as having someone you are headhunting.

                When in this situation, instead of actively pursuing your goals, you are just grinding out the work, day by day, week by week, and month by month, seemingly accomplishing nothing more than you already have.  In addition, you are constantly worried about the people below you that want your spot so bad, and you do too, but there is just something so much more energizing about not having it at the present.  Being at the top wears you down.  It’s very lonely at the top.  However, in order to remain successful, you must work past all these disadvantages and psychological depressants and perform at the same level, whether you are currently at the top or not.

                For someone who has been fighting for so long and hard, gunning for the same person to defeat them and take their spot, the initial glory of taking them down is absolutely exhilarating.  The feeling of being the best is momentarily the ultimate jubilation, and seems like it will never subside.  However, after a few minutes, hours or days, this feeling goes away, and we don’t feel any happier than we did before.  Why, then, do we have any incentive to keep working to keep this spot?  The only reason I can think of is the natural competitiveness belonging to people that achieve this greatness.  All extremely successful people will eventually have to deal with this feeling, and overcome it.