Fifth Place and Fine With It

A well known study of Olympic medalists found that bronze winners consistently looked happier, on video, than silver winners, even though silver is objectively the better result. The reason had nothing to do with the medal itself.

Silver medalists compared themselves upward, to the gold they'd just missed. Bronze medalists compared themselves downward, to the finishers who won nothing at all.

Later attempts to repeat the finding have been mixed, but the comparison effect itself, upward against downward, holds up well beyond that one study. I used to think a step count was just a number competing with other numbers.

Now I think it might be closer to that medal stand, my own version of it decided entirely by which direction I happened to be looking when I checked the result. Fifth place doesn't come with a medal or a story anyone tells afterward.

It comes with a choice about where to point the comparison, upward at whoever finished ahead, or downward at the fact that I finished at all, on a day I might easily not have. I wrote never give up in a notebook once, next to someone else's medal, on a day that wasn't mine to keep.

I've started measuring my own days by the same trick the bronze medalists used without knowing they were using it. Most days I don't get to choose which direction the comparison points itself.

I'm learning to at least notice which one I've picked before I let it decide how the whole day feels. Fifth place, looked at from underneath instead of above, is a perfectly good place to have finished.