Seeing this topic, a certain incident came straight to my mind, and I will narrate it briefly. I was still in the university then—third year or so. It was time for the annual Student Union Government (SUG) election, and my school mother was one of the contestants. She was running for the position of vice president along with two other candidates, and there were other contestants for different posts as well.
Everything was going well, we had started publicity, printed banners, and all that, until she started receiving threats. We didn’t take it seriously at first, until the death threats began. I was shocked! She even received a call warning her that if she valued her life, she should step down and not continue with the election.
I was furious and genuinely confused as to why anyone would go to that length for an election at the university level. What would that kind of person do if it were at the national level? I wonder, and still wonder, at the gutter behaviour, because I just can't wrap my head around it. We couldn't figure out the perpetrator, and my school mother wanted to go on with the election regardless, but her dad begged her to step down. The man was even having weird dreams about her, and his mind wasn't settled. She had no choice but to step down and just let peace reign. Imagine that approach to a mere competition! All because they knew she had a very high chance of winning.
I narrated this story to explain how toxic some people can be when it comes to competitions. The problem isn't the existence of competitions; it's the people involved. A competition can be a test of many things — intelligence, speed, popularity, and so on. However, it is also the ultimate test of emotional intelligence. In every competition, there will be a winner and a loser (or losers, as the case may be). That doesn't mean the losers are failures or anything; it's a chance to do better, discover their weaknesses, and grow.
Competitions are meant to be healthy, you don't have to hate the winner for winning. If you were better, you would have been the winner instead. It takes a level of emotional intelligence to accept defeat and not let it affect you negatively. It's okay to be sad about losing, but going down that toxic route is just a big NO. I’ve had my fair share of failure in competitions, and it even left a trauma in me when it comes to engaging in them, lol.
I once competed for Social Prefect back in secondary school. I lost woefully and cried terribly. 🤣 Looking back now, why was I even crying, really? Thank God I found a quiet place to do that nonsense and not in front of people. I was sad, but honestly, I wasn't shocked that I didn't win. I wasn't a social person. Going for that post was a way to challenge myself and force myself to put myself out there if I did win. The girl who won was my classmate, but I found our third competitor more worthy. She was one of the girls who was always out there, while my classmate was one of our teachers' daughters. Maybe that worked in her favour as well. But I congratulated her the next day and got over my failure — though not the fear of it. 🤣
Overall, I do hope people can train themselves to keep an open mind when engaging in any kind of competition.
Thanks for reading ♥️