An essay about avoiding comparative identities by Yael Martinez

This imaginary competition between one of my friends and me was certainly clear at one of the first Math Team competitions during my freshman year, which was when I barely joined the club.

At the competition at Jones College Prep, they gave us math tests to score us. I was only worried about beating my competitor friend though because it felt like I just couldn’t let him overcome me in anything ever. 

I wasn’t going to ace the test, but I was set on getting a better score than him. During that quiet time doing the test, I reflected a bit and saw that there was a pattern between my friend and me. Every club he joined, I joined it with him. 

Every little win he got like a good score, I would instantly compare myself to him and get upset at myself: a ruthless cycle. 

I reflected long and hard about my relationship with him; however, I still got beaten at the test. Excuses were made but still, I lost that battle and it stuck on to me for a while. Something was wrong in my head regarding my friendship with my friend.

I was very different before the competition in my head began. It was summer break before freshman year, so I really just relaxed and worried about myself for the majority of the time. I wasn’t all worked up about high school, college, and all that future stuff since it wasn’t coming up yet. However, in the 8th grade, I didn’t do sports or clubs. I didn’t really compare myself to others during the year, not in the long term at least. 

I did want to see what others got on classwork or test scores and didn’t care if others saw what I got, although I was mostly a straight-A student all year long. I didn’t want to be perfect.  I was more concerned with how others saw me and my image if we’re going to be honest.

After that competition where I reflected, I couldn’t stop thinking about my competition with him. Every time I was with him, I’d go back to thinking about how he was automatically better than me with his grades and other traits. And he was a very close friend which made things worse. I wanted to express my feelings to him about my fake competition with him but I stayed quiet. I had lots of chances to resolve my competition, yet I did nothing and kept going with the cycle--constantly comparing myself to him whenever he was slightly mentioned or was just there.

Fast-forwarding to 2020 on the day before my birthday: I was writing letters to give to my friends after we were going to hang out. It was one of the first times that I actually reflected on my own which is a useful skill to do every once in a while. 

The letters were my thoughts and reflections on our relationships so far. The last letter was for my competitor friend; in addition, it took the longest to write. He said that he probably couldn’t come, yet I wrote a letter for him. 
I felt the most emotional writing his letter since I uncovered my hidden anger and jealous feelings toward him, how he had better grades, looked more favorable to colleges, and other traits that he had which I didn’t. I was having cold sweats, my heart sank, and my stomach had butterflies. 

After finishing, a swift relief took over and I felt reborn. I declared my loss in this meaningless race. Writing the letter benefitted me more than my friend. The insight was that nobody can and will be perfect. There’s always going to be a bigger fish. I was so obsessed with beating my friend that I hardly realized how far I had come in life and that my position was already better than others.

Now I’m simply going at my own pace as everyone should. It is definitely better because every time I compare myself to someone else, I just remind myself that there are others better than them. Also that I’m better than some others, which satisfies me. I’m fine at my own pace. We can learn that there is always going to be someone better than us; however, we also do some things better than others.

This essay is part of AP English Language with Ray Salazar.  

 

To send the student a compliment, email Mr. Salazar: rsalazar at cps dot edu.

He’ll forward it to the student.