"What does it take to be number 1? Two is not a winner, and three nobody remembers." - Nelly

Now after this morning's workout with Ryan, I've finally figured something out about myself that may be beneficial to know in the future. It's occured all of my life and I hadn't noticed it until now.

Here it goes. You know those times when you strive for something really hard to be the best, and in the end you find yourself in 2nd or 3rd place. Yeah that's my life story. Here are some examples to prove my point. A bunch of it will sound like I'm just boasting and trying to inflate my ego, but really I'm just trying to emphasize how close I've come at times:

Grade 6 Math Class: I thought I was the king of Math back then. I really thought I was invincible and that I would never ever need to use a calculator for my future career emersed in elementary mathematics (or at least I thought there was such a career). But when it really came down to it, Ceanda always beat me to the punch every single time. Sure I'd win the small battles with the odd solution to the "Math Challenger" problem, but in the end EVERY single time her math average would be higher than mine (for all of the people that were in my math class, you'd know). So naturally I came second tier to this math superiority, and to be honest, I couldn't care less because I was still the 2nd best in the class if not the entire school.

High School Drama: Basically at Shep, Drama was not a huge emphasis for most of the guys that attended the school. Obviously they were more geared towards the more hyped areas of Shep's polished image like Basketball or Football. Right off the beginning that made things easier for me because there were less people to contend to. I figured with my extensive dramatic history since Grade 6 of being involved (mainly playing the lead character) of 4 separate productions that I would be a shoe-in for the best male actor of the school. And off the beginning it already seemed that way with one of the productions I was involved with getting 3rd place out of 21 one-acts in the school. The other two that had won and that were moving to the zone finals had this one actor in particular that I knew would be my biggest competition, Cole. Of course things changed as the years past. After being the one student from my school nominated for a dramatic award for my grade 10 year, it pushed me to plan a huge drama explosion for grade 11 where I planned to finally make it to the zone finals.

Then the teacher strike came. So much for that idea. Finally in grade 12 I decided to get involved in the winter production of Alice. Being cast The Mad Hatter, I figured that it would give me the wiggle room to bring out my full potential. And I really think that I might have come to it except in the end everything went to crap. I had broken up with Christine just a week before shows started which kinda killed the mood, and Cole was cast as an even more pompous role of The Queen of Hearts. So that one went into the crapper. Later on in the year, one-acts came again and I was cast the ultimate role for tons of wiggle room, the Crazy mental institute patient whose really the figment of someone's imagination. Seeing this I really upped the ante and got into the role. After my performance, including my first ever successful attempt at crying on stage, I felt pretty confident that it went well. That is until I saw Cole's one-act where he played a lover who becomes overly jealous/crazy and strangles his own lover. His included complete streams of tears down his face almost making the whole stage wet, and tons of drama. Well so much for that year. So in that case Cole was easily known as the best actor at Shep, and again I came in 2nd.

Those are the two main instances that I wanted to get into details. Of course there's tons of other examples like getting 2nd and 3rd place in the tournament, my 2nd place victory in the Smash brothers Melee tournament at K-days, as well as my 2nd place victory in the Perfect Dark Tournament at K-days (damn you kason...), and my now realized 2nd place image for being the "built guy" next to Ryan.

In all, it would be so easy for me to just cut my losses and declare that there's nothing I can do about it. But I think as a majority of you have read my blogs over the months, I try not to be one to make excuses, but rather to make goals and incentives. In this case I see the problem as my being satisfied to be number 2. I always seem to compare myself to another person and think "Well, at least I'm on the right track."

Well not anymore! From now on this Dev is shooting for number one in all aspects of life. No more of this excuses bs, it's totally go-time! So I want all of those people who know they're the best in a specific aspect, (not you creepy old man, you suck at everything..) that I'm coming for your ass. Well not in a creepy sexual way, but you know what I mean...

It's now summer time. So I've got the time, I've got the will, and I'm going to find the way. Yeah that was cheesy :P

Seacrest Out.