Lewis Hamilton. A name synonymous with success. Most people could probably recognize an image of this iconic 7-time World Champion, but few could identify the little plump man that always seemed to follow him onto the podium. A driver, who despite having the same car and given the same opportunities, had always lived in the shadow of his teammate’s glory.
In a way, my life story was the same as Valtteri Bottas’s, always chasing an impossible dream on the perilous road to success.
My Hamilton was a boy named Andi. Although he was in the grade above me, it didn’t stop people from making comparisons, because we were both Asian and shared numerous similarities. It’s a surprise that we aren’t friends -- but I guess parallel lines never meet.
We were both academics, but Andi was the undisputed top-dog of his grade. We were both musicians, but he had mastered three instruments while I barely managed two. We were both rowers, and even in that field his technique and speed put my efforts to shame. The list goes on, but it seemed that he outperformed me in everything. No matter how hard I tried, I always lived under his shadow.
Since I can never outshine his achievements, I followed his footsteps in an attempt to imitate his success. I switched from taking French to German at the last second, simply because he was excelling in that subject. Although I really enjoyed learning the language, I have never won the German prize (a feat which he repeated every year). They say history repeats itself, and so it did… Just not how I wanted it to be. Instead of freeing myself from Andi’s shadow, I sank deeper into it, and was back where I started.
So I tried a different strategy, to drag myself out of Andi’s shadow by doing things that he didn’t do. I joined debating for that very purpose, and was enjoying myself until he joined and soon displaced me as a better speaker. It was as if fate had designated me to always be his shadow, even when I deliberately intended not to. This was for me the most embarrassing and frustrating experience, especially when my mother constantly makes that damned comparison.
I tried so hard in vain, but I could never be good enough to reach those “Andi expectations”. Perhaps I never will be. Perhaps I never should be.
Then one day I had an epiphany. We were in chapel and the Reverend Father preached in his sermon on the importance of ‘living the life you wanted, and not the life others want you to live’. So the path I have been following all along was meaningless. Whilst it is true that Andi was worshipped as a God at our school, it did not mean that I should follow him all the time. Indeed, he was not even that perfect: his jokes are not funny and he even has his own website to glorify his achievements. Why would I ever want to be like him?
Andi himself was not the problem to my conflict. I was. He was merely the imaginary monster of my own creation, coming back to consistently haunt me. I know now that such a monster does not exist. His life had nothing to do with mine, and my actions should not be influenced by his. This entire time I unknowingly constructed a cage around myself, not seeing that the relativity of my success was totally irrelevant. I finally accepted that Andi will always be better than me, a fact that is perfectly fine and normal.
I was tired of forever living under Andi’s shadow, but now I am free to live my own life. No longer will I be bound by the manacles of expectation, nor by the perceptions of others. I am content with myself, and with myself alone.
It is time to live the life I wanted.
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