How to Become Better Than Other People, by Q. Reyes – Artistic Warfare #44

October 11, 2009 Q. Reyes 2 Comments

Being better than other people is fun.  Whether is living better, being better looking or simply outshining the competition, there’s no argument that better is just… better.

The idea that we must be humble is outdated, but not necessarily obsolete; yet, the world is ruled and populated by a survival of the fittest mentality with the contradicting turn the other cheek actions.  My suggestion is that you let go of both of those schools of thought.

Only poor and ugly people say things like “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” or “money can’t buy you happiness,” or even “money is the root of all evil.”  These are all lies people tell themselves so that they don’t feel their lives are as miserable.  Try telling a starving kid in a village in South America or Africa “food is not all there’s to life.”  He’ll probably kill you, and then eat you (if he had the energy).

My point is that in order to become better you must appreciate the best.  You need a goal to strive towards.  Being content is fine, but then be content that other people have it better than you.

The only way to become better than people is to understand that being better is a possibility in the first place.  If you played a one-on-one basketball game with Kobe Bryant, the odds are that he’s better than you at that game; yet, maybe if you played a game of chess you could beat him.  That means that you’d be better than him at chess, and that’s okay.  The balance is that he’ll be good at some things and you’ll be good at others.

In school, there are only a few kids on top of their class.  Does that mean that they’re better than other kids?  Yes, it does.  At least academically they have proven that they are better.  Maybe a kid at the bottom of the class ranking is one of the best football players ever.  So the balance is that there has to be a best, and why not let it be you.

Sometimes talent or skill is not enough to be the best.  There’s always someone out there striving to become better than you.  Besides talent or skill, however, there’s one thing that we all have an equal amount.  That thing is time.  Twenty-four hours.  We all have that.  We get to choose how we spend these hours.  Some people sleep most of them, other people watch TV with their time, and others work.

What you do with your time and how wise you spend it dictates how much better you become.  Someone might have more talent or more skill, but if you can manage to outwork him or her, you might end up on top.

Time management is the key to being better, since practice makes perfect, and practice takes time.  If you were to make a goal, and set aside as much time as possible to get that goal accomplished, you will do it.  If you were to double your “practice” time for something you wanted to master, you will cut the mastery time in half.

It’s a matter of having the desire and motivation to becoming the best, and the rest is hard work.  The first step, however, is that you have to feel okay with being better than other people.  There’s nothing wrong with that.  Do whatever it takes to make a better life for your family and those around you.  Nothing wrong with wanting to be the best.