“And the third prize goes to…” somebody on dais would say and I would squeeze gods in my folded palms pleading for it not be my name! As a kid, I hated third prizes. Honestly, I still do.
They make you false smile. They make you force ‘thanks’ when people say ‘congrats’. You know they don’t mean the ‘congrats’ as good as you know you don’t mean ‘thanks’. It’s more like… ‘so you are okay but not good enough’ being said to you and you saying ‘get lost’. Oh I hate third prizes.
They don’t make big stories. They aren’t to be remembered. They aren’t failures enough. They are so not success. Imagine a movie, any awesome movie – ‘The Shawshank Redemption’… or may be ‘A Beautiful Mind’. Now end ‘Shawshank Redemption’ in Dufresne’s release from jail at an age of say seventy. Or an early release with twenty years of parole – I don’t even know if that happens. But let’s just imagine anyway. The story loses it all. Stop playing ‘A Beautiful Mind’ at a point when Prof. Nash starts a normal life again, teaches at the university and that’s it. End the movie. Don’t give the Nobel Prize. Remove the pen tribute thing, remove the last speech. The life is good – a man falling down and coming back to life. Should be it. But that does not make a story. Cause you and me, as audience won’t know if it was a happy end or sad. You won’t be able to shed tears for the man who went to ashes for the only reason of having sheer brilliance… Or feel the awe of the final recognition that came when he lost it all… and realize may be that he did regain it all. You need the kick. Of total loss or total gain. The stories are supposed to give it all or nothing. The stories have only success and fails. And so does the real life.
There is no place for a third prize. It is either all or none. Like a math sum. It is pure. There is one correct answer to it. You have it or you don’t.
People will tell you to grow up, be mature and understand that it is not so black and white. Everything, every step is a compromise. People will tell you to grab the third prize for it is better than no prize. And maybe they are very right. You will get to hear lessons that there are multiple levels of successes and failures. Your definition of success might be different from others. And true it is. Very true.
But let me tell you this. Different or same you know utterly well your definition of success. And just because you are not able to explain it, does not mean you don’t know your priorities clear. And let me add, that success has only one definition – it is what feels ecstatic!
And if at this moment, you are not feeling that – it does not matter if it was third prize or no mention of your name on dais at all. If your two plus two weren’t four, if does not matter how close to four they were. Two plus two add to three is as bad an answer as five hundred and seventy. There was a dialog in one of Hindi Movies I watched – when you are robbing a bank it does not matter it is for two hundred or two millions. I am saying the same thing. It is a yes and no. Black and white. There is no approximation in success. If it not the one thing, that you lived for, its nothing. Let them tell you otherwise. If you really start believing life is about compromises, it sure as hell will be!
Third prizes are not for you. Somebody has to stand third, may be, but that is not you. Go grab the first. For no matter how tough that competition is, there is always a place vacant on Top!!
The Colored Pane 