March 16
1421 Words
There are wars that make noise.
And there are wars that rearrange you quietly.
Today, the faculty corridors carried whispers the way harmattan carries dust lightly, invisibly, until everything is coated. No announcement was pinned to a board. No email was sent. Yet the ranking moved from mouth to mouth like contraband hope.
Numbers do not shout.
They settle.
They sit beside your name and breathe differently.
And suddenly, peace becomes negotiable.
A class ranking is whispered.
I did well.
Very well.
Top ten.
Top ten in a class full of brilliant, relentless, sleep-deprived future lawyers is not a small thing. It is not an accident. It is not luck.
It is hours.
It is sacrifice.
It is highlighters that ran dry and notebooks that filled too quickly.
And still
Someone else did better.
Not dramatically.
Not by a margin wide enough to call it defeat.
Just enough to disturb my peace.
Her name is Dara.
If our faculty produces a Best Graduating Student this year, it will be her. She currently has the highest CGPA in our class. Not by something scandalous. Not by a gap that makes the rest of us invisible.
Just enough.
Enough to sit ahead of every other name.
Enough to turn celebration into quiet comparison.
What makes this ache complicated is history.
On the first day of school, Dara and I stood side by side outside the hostel building, two girls holding admission letters like they were fragile promises. The sun was harsh. Parents were giving last-minute advice. Boxes were stacked everywhere like temporary mountains.
She looked at me and smiled.
“Law?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Same.”
That was the beginning.
Our hostel rooms were two doors apart — 23 and 25. Close enough to knock on the wall and shout, “Are you reading?” Close enough to borrow toothpaste at midnight. Close enough to hear each other’s alarms in the morning.
That first week, we were almost inseparable.
We attended orientation together. Sat side by side in lecture halls that felt too big for our confidence. Got lost looking for administrative offices. Laughed about how serious everyone looked, as if smiling was against faculty policy.
At night, we would sit on the corridor floor with our backs against the wall, books spread out between us.
“Donoghue v Stevenson,” she would read carefully.
“Is it not raw snail case?” I would say, and we would both laugh.
We mispronounced Latin without shame.
Mens rea sounded like a spell from a fantasy novel.
We were ambitious, yes but it was light then. Exciting. Pure.
We promised each other we would “shock this faculty.”
We believed there was room for both of us at the top.
Back then, we did not know that proximity can quietly turn into comparison.
Somewhere between first semester and now, something shifted.
Not a fight.
Not betrayal.
Just divergence.
Dara became intentional in a way that felt almost surgical. She didn’t just study; she designed systems. Her notes were organized weeks before exams. She summarized cases with precision. She asked lecturers questions that revealed she had already read beyond what was assigned.
She did not study in emotional bursts.
She studied in disciplined rhythm.
While I worked hard, Dara worked strategically.
And strategy compounds.
Every semester, her CGPA climbed steadily.
Mine climbed too but it hovered just behind hers, like a shadow that never quite overlaps.
Now I no longer live in the hostel. I have my own apartment off campus.
Growth looks different now.
Privacy feels like maturity.
But comparison followed me here.
When the ranking was whispered today, I was sitting at my dining table that doubles as my reading desk. My phone buzzed.
“Have you heard?”
I knew.
Still, my heart quickened.
“You’re top ten!”
I closed my eyes and exhaled.
Top ten.
That is not small.
That is not mediocre.
That is not something to dismiss.
But the next message came quickly.
“Dara still has the highest CGPA.”
Of course she does.
I placed my phone face down.
And there it was the disturbance.
Not jealousy.
Not bitterness.
Just a quiet question that slipped into the room:
Why not you?
Ambition is such a respectable thing.
Nobody warns you about its shadow.
At first, it motivates you. It wakes you up early. It pushes you to reread cases when your eyes are tired. It makes you choose the library over comfort.
But unchecked, ambition begins to measure worth.
It starts to whisper that excellence is only valid if it is superior.
And ego does not always arrive loudly.
Sometimes ego wears humility like perfume.
It says, “I just want to be my best.”
But deep down, it adds:
“…and I want that to be better than hers.”
I replayed the semester in my mind.
If I had revised that topic one more time.
If I had answered that exam question differently.
If I had not allowed anxiety to steal focus during one paper.
The mind is generous with alternate endings.
But reality does not revise grades for emotional effort.
Later that week, I saw Dara after class. She was sitting under a tree with two junior students, explaining a concept from Administrative Law. She spoke calmly, flipping through her well-tabbed notebook.
There was no performance in her excellence.
No announcement.
No superiority.
Just consistency.
She saw me and waved.
“Elle! I heard you’re in top ten. That’s amazing.”
Amazing.
The word softened something in me.
She was not guarding a throne.
She was not measuring me.
She was simply walking her path.
Comparison is often a private competition the other person never entered.
Dara has never tried to outshine me.
She has simply done her work.
The rivalry existed mostly in my head — born from shared beginnings and diverging outcomes.
Because our rooms were once close.
Because we started this journey side by side.
Because we once read cases under flickering hostel lights and promised to conquer everything together.
Somewhere along the line, I created a silent contract:
If she rises, I must rise equally.
But life is not synchronized.
Two seeds can be planted in the same soil.
One may bloom earlier.
That does not make the other defective.
That night, standing on my balcony, watching the city lights blink in uneven patterns, I asked myself a difficult question:
Do I want to be excellent?
Or do I want to be superior?
Excellence is internal.
Superiority is comparative.
One is growth.
The other is positioning.
There is danger in always wanting “a little more.”
Because “a little more” never ends.
If I had the highest CGPA today, would I sleep peacefully?
Or would I fear losing it next semester?
Would I become obsessed with protecting it?
Would I measure every interaction through the lens of threat?
Contentment is not complacency.
It does not mean I lower my goals.
It means my peace is no longer hostage to a ranking.
I thought back to our first week in the hostel.
Two girls sitting on a corridor floor, laughing at mispronounced Latin and sharing biscuits between study breaks.
We were not thinking about CGPAs.
We were thinking about survival.
Joy existed before numbers began to define us.
Maybe peace has always been available.
Maybe I just attached it to the wrong metric.
Dara will likely graduate with the highest CGPA.
Her name will be announced with pride.
People will clap.
Lecturers will nod knowingly.
And I will clap too.
Not out of obligation.
Not through clenched teeth.
But with understanding.
Because someone else’s excellence does not subtract from mine.
The sky does not dim one star because another shines brighter.
There is space.
There has always been space.
I am still ambitious.
I still want to grow.
I still want to push myself beyond comfort.
But I am learning to untangle ambition from insecurity.
To pursue excellence without tying it to comparison.
To celebrate her without diminishing myself.
Tonight, I am not recalculating possibilities.
I am not measuring the distance between her CGPA and mine.
I am not imagining alternate endings.
I am remembering two girls on their first day of law school hopeful, nervous, unaware of rankings.
And I am choosing to return to that softness.
Dara has the highest CGPA.
And I am still becoming.
That is no longer a consolation.
It is enough.
— Elle ✍🏾
- Writer
