These days, it’s incredibly hard to be “the best.”
Not just hard but almost impossible and unless you are really, really, really good. I’ve tried chasing that ideal before. Every time I thought I was close, I discovered something better, or someone better. There is always another peak. Another prodigy. Another benchmark.

Eventually, I stopped chasing the top.

Not because I gave up.
But because I chose a different target:

No need to be the best. Just be better than average.

If I’m going to do something at all, I might as well aim to be better than the average person doing it.

When I was young, I was often at the top of my class. Somehow, I found myself changing schools twice and I was usually the top of my own class until I was placed in the best class. Suddenly, I found myself surrounded by people far better than me.

For the first time, I wasn’t special.

By the time the national exams came, I was nowhere near “the best.”
I had gone from being a big fish in a small pond to a small fish in a much bigger ocean.

It humbled me.

And that humility shaped how I live today.

Now in my mid-30s, my focus has shifted. Life is no longer about grades or rankings but it is also  about health, career, and family. I have a better-than-average job: a stable government role that pays above the median, even if it’s not enough for a car or a condo (Cars are insanely expensive in Singapore). I have a wife and two kids. By many measures, this is already a good life.

So my “better than average” mindset now lives in how I take care of myself.

With age and small chronic issues slowly catching up, I’ve made fitness part of my identity. For more than ten years since completing National Service, I’ve consistently achieved “Silver” in the annual national fitness test. Gold is the best. Silver is sustainable. It means I’m not exceptional but I’m more fit than most men my age.

My next “better than average” goal is a sub-2-hour half marathon. If things go well, maybe even 1:45. I’m not trying to become an elite runner. I’m training to be the kind of father who can still run with his kids, the kind of man who doesn’t fall apart at 50.

Why not aim for the best?

Because it’s not realistic for me.

I’m not a genius. I’m not exceptionally talented. I have decent instincts and quick wits, but that’s my ceiling. I don’t have elite connections. I won’t run a 2:10 half marathon. I won’t become a once-in-a-generation anything. 

But “better than average”? That’s achievable. And it’s powerful.