The hardest part for the children who do not make it to the top is that they feel like they have not made it anywhere. There's more than one person close to me

The hardest part for the children who do not make it to the top is that they feel like they have not made it anywhere. There's more than one person close to me who feels this way -- if you've been raised to believe that #2 is the first loser, you may have a very hard time adapting to a real world in which success is often collaborative and has no end point. I mean, think about bringing a fiercely competitive mindset to one of the many areas of life where in reality, if your peers/collaborators/friends/relatives (not competitors) do better work, that helps you towards your common goal. I've been thinking & talking about this a lot lately, because I'm the father of an 17-month-old, and I want her to know how to work hard for long-term goals, without giving her crippling perfectionism (no, not everything worth doing is worth doing well...) and a permanently twisted view of life.