I’ve always been a competitive person. As a kid, I’d race my classmates to climb the small hillock first, try to finish my dinner first, and sulk for hours if I lost at chess. But it wasn’t until I hit my late twenties that I realized this burning desire to win – this rage to excel – could be channeled into something meaningful.
It started with a dead-end job and a gnawing feeling that I was capable of so much more. I’d come home every night, open up my laptop, and wonder how the hell I’d ended up here. Wasn’t I supposed to be changing the world by now? Making my mark? Instead, I was resolving application management tickets and counting down the minutes until I could escape the fluorescent-lit prison of my cubicle.
One particularly shitty Tuesday of 2016, after my senior in my team had ripped me a new one for a mistake that wasn’t even mine, something snapped. I felt this surge of anger, of frustration, of pure, unadulterated rage. But instead of lashing out, I took a deep breath and thought, “How can I use this?”
That night, instead of drowning my sorrows in cheap dopamine pleasures, I fired up my laptop and started researching. I looked into Youtube, online courses, anything that could give me an edge. I dusted off those dreams I’d shelved years ago and started to plot.
The next few months were a blur of late nights, early mornings, and more coffee/tea than any human should consume. I studied, I networked, I pushed myself harder than I ever had before. There were moments when I wanted to give up, when the voice in my head whispered that I wasn’t good enough, that I should just accept my lot in life.
But that rage, that burning desire to prove everyone (including myself) wrong, kept me going. It wasn’t always pretty. I snapped at friends, neglected relationships, and probably aged a few years in the process. But slowly, surely, things started to change.
I landed a new job, finally in the Sep of 2016, one that challenged me and gave me room to grow. I started taking on side projects, building a reputation in my field. And with each small victory, that rage transformed. It became less about proving others wrong and more about proving to myself what I was capable of.
Now, years later, I look back on that angry, frustrated version of myself with a mix of sympathy and gratitude. That rage, as uncomfortable and all-consuming as it was, became the fuel for my transformation. It wasn’t about being the best or beating others – it was about becoming the best version of myself.
Do I still feel that fire sometimes? Absolutely. But now I know how to harness it, how to let it drive me forward without burning everything in its path. The rage to excel isn’t about destroying the competition – it’s about constantly pushing yourself, about refusing to settle for mediocrity in any aspect of your life.
So if you feel that burn, that frustration with where you are and that desperate desire to be more – don’t run from it. Embrace it. Channel it. Let it be the spark that ignites your journey to excellence. Just remember, true excellence isn’t about being better than everyone else – it’s about being better than you were yesterday.