Competition

[Different]

Being #2 in something with a lot of ppl isn't being made an ass-clown out of it's just the probable likely thing to happen at some point, even Usain Bolt was beaten in the 200m in his last races, but that doesn't take away from how he was by far the #1 in his prime.

Interesting comment. I guess it depends on how people deal with losing or maybe it's the amount of circumstances that they set for themselves. Also yeah, you're right. Just because he was beaten in his last races, still makes him #1 in reality because he held that spot in his prime.

For the general "you thought you were one of the best until someone higher ranking shows you what's up", this has gotta be taken against the general pool of people and what percentile you're in, if you're in the top 0.1% of a game with 1,000,000 players then there's still possibly about 1,000 people better than you, but don't let that make you forget the 999,000 you're better than yourself.

Oh yeah, there's always those who are still better than you are. It's interesting how you mentioned the top 0.1% of being the best in the game, even though there are those who are a part of that same percentile.

In terms of tactics becoming stale and someone beating you due to their new tactics, it may be unfortunate that you lost but at least you've learnt something new for the future and if you want to continue to become better at the thing then you can use the newly gained knowledge to help you get even better than before.

Exactly. Well said.

Skill levels don't belong to a strict totally ordered set. In games, for instance, it's very common to have situations where player A beats player B, player B beats player C and player C beats player A, even at the top level. Losing to someone doesn't invalidate any of the achievements that you've earned. The whole idea of being "the one and only best" is an utterly ridiculous and childish way of looking at it, to be completely honest. Unfortunately, I think being really good at something competitive does sort of force you to adopt this awful, binary perspective that you have, along with a massive ego (or more often some kind of insecurity), to keep pushing you forward, often at the cost of your mental health.

You've got a point, here. Skill sets shouldn't be invalidated after getting defeated by another competitor because you can still come back with a vengeance and destroy them, using what you've learned. Also yes, when you're #1 at something, depending on how you handle it, you just may develop a massive ego to remain the best, even though there might be consequences.

Being in that kind of environment and playing against people who only want to bring you down and be better than you brings out the worst in you, and it's easy to end up investing all of your self-worth into something meaningless. I've talked to so many people with this same experience too: ultra competitive environments were everyone has to be better or worse than everyone else are breeding grounds for awful behaviour.

I see a lot of this aggressive behavior into games like football, basketball, boxing, etc. At that point, you just need to decide if it's even worth your time, dealing with those kind of people because when they see something that they want, they're coming with that negative energy, hoping that you'll forfeit and allow them to become the best. No one's offering a helping hand and they're willing to cheat their way to the top, if they feel like they have to.

I disagree with this thread's premise and don't really understand the point of it to begin with, rip

No problem. Everyone has their opinions and perspectives that they'd like to get across the board, regardless of whether they agree or disagree. The point of this thread was to see if any of you have ever been in that situation before, where you find yourself developing a massive ego after dominating everyone else in something, and have been the absolute best for a long time.