“Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them.”

• Aristotle

I am admittedly a competitive person. Like most people I like to win but there is no joy in cheating to rise to the top. If I gain an award I want it to be because I deserved to do so. I don’t want someone to honor me out of pity or fear. Simply using force to get attention or glory is the way of a coward and cheat. 

I worked at a school that honored a student or teacher every Friday at an end of week gathering. The idea behind the award was to have somehow been seen by the previous recipient as a person who did something of genuine merit. Thus week after week I watched with great interest as the new individual was lauded. When my name was one day announced I accepted my prize with great humility because what I had seemingly done to earn it was really just part of my responsibility to be aware of the needs of my students. I had helped a young man in a rather dire circumstance, not with an eye to being honored, but because it was the right thing to do. Nonetheless I still cherish that medal because it was evidence that someone saw that I understood him just as I had always tried to do. 

We have so many contests in our society. I’ve watched my grandchildren running in races and swimming against strong competition. They have told me that their goals were always to improve their personal best records. They competed mostly with themselves, not with others. They ran and swam because they enjoyed the process of becoming healthier better people. The trophies and medals were fun to have only because they pointed to their dedication. They were a nod to their willingness to rise early to practice and to improve through the coaching of experts. 

At the end of my high school years I ended up with the top grade point average which made me the valedictorian. I did not believe for an instant that it made me smarter than any of my peers because I knew better. It only reflected my hard work that stemmed from an early encounter with the principal of the school who insisted that my placement in advanced classes was in error. The only reason he gave me a shot at being in the top group was because my teachers had insisted that I deserved to be there in spite of my score on an entrance exam. I suppose that I worked as hard as I did to prove to the principal that my former teachers were correct and that he was wrong. It was a challenge that I accepted even as I heard my deceased father urging me to always put in the effort to my studies that he knew that I possessed. I was only proud of my determination, not the prize itself which literally became meaningless once I enrolled in college and continued in life. 

Sometimes we get a nod just for trying to accomplish something. There is nothing wrong with that. I am ashamed to say that there have been many times when I decided not to even attempt some challenge because I felt so hopelessly inept. I avoided sports of all kinds because I saw myself as a klutz. I envied my friends who seemed to be so naturally skilled. I would later learn from an observant professor that all I needed was clear instruction on how to stand, throw, and control my movements to be able to participate in athletic endeavors. I took his coaching to heart and used it to help my students understand that sometimes it takes a bit more work to achieve something that seems natural to others but that does not mean that it will never happen. We all learn things differently and at different paces. We may never be award winners in certain enterprises but every single thing that we attempt to do makes our lives fuller and more wonderful. 

We presently have a president who is obsessed with winning. He wants to be proclaimed the best at everything. He wants honors and glories whether he actually deserves them or not. He makes a mockery of those who have duly earned their prizes and covets the titles that they have. He wants to be acknowledged with greatness that he has yet to actually earn. He bribes and threatens and cheats rather than putting in the hard work that real trophy winners understand to be the actual joy of competitions. They work hard for the betterment of themselves and the team. If their efforts result in recognition that is only the cherry on top of their already wonderful accomplishments. Our president seems not to understand this very basic truth. Namely, he can display rings and placards and even the Nobel Peace Prize of someone else but they are nothing more than trinkets if he has not won them by his own genuine efforts. Nobody is impressed with someone who buys or cheats his way to glory. 

We would do well to teach our young that the true joy of accomplishment comes from the determined dedication to reaching a goal. It involves hard work, setbacks and disappointments, as well as working in tandem with others. The true prizes are not things and sometimes are never spoken aloud. We win whenever we can truthfully say that we did our very best in whatever we decided to do. The prize resides in our hearts, not on a shelf or a wall.