Selection in our lives begins early, much before a child can even read. For admission to a school at the pre-primary or primary stage, parents prepare the child. There are coaching classes for this too. Then come the tests and interviews, sometimes politely called "interactions." All the children in a class have passed through this system, so the class should be homogeneous. And yet, within the same class, differentiation starts. One child is in the top ten per cent, another in the bottom ten per cent.
In Class X comes the board examination. Again there is a spectrum of marks, and only with a given percentage is admission to Class XI in Science or Commerce possible. The selected students form a new class, and differentiation starts again. In Class XII comes another board examination, and the topper of Class X may not be the topper of Class XII.
Then come the entrance examinations for engineering, medicine and law. Once again, the topper at entry may not be the topper at exit. Then the job, a selection of its own, followed by the daily test of how one performs in it.
This is the catch with selection. Every round produces a group of equals, and every group of equals at once produces a new top and a new bottom. However select the class, someone has to be last. A student who was the pride of the school can find that they are just average in a class of toppers.
The race leaves its mark at both ends. A child placed in the bottom ten per cent at the age of six often carries that label for years, at school and sometimes at home. The child who has been first at every stage, on the other hand, starts to believe that being first is who they are. Such a child can struggle badly the first time they are not, and sooner or later that day comes. And most families have a story of the cousin who barely scraped through school and is today doing better than all the toppers of that batch.
Then there is marriage and family, where no marks are given at all. Will someone who topped at every stage do equally well as a husband or wife, or as a parent? There is no guarantee. Patience, give and take, and the ability to put someone else first are not tested in any examination hall.
So it is not necessary that the best at any stage will be the best always. It changes. A rank at six, or at sixteen, says very little about the person at forty.
What is required is that we be sincere, honest, truthful and good human beings. Being the best at one stage does not mean that life will be lived well. Ranks are decided by others and change at every stage. Goodness is in our own hands, and it does not have to be proved afresh at the next selection. If you are a good human being, you will enjoy life as it comes.