As for the Lord and not for Men

By Lana Brewster

After my fifth and sixth-grade years of middle school where many of my closest friends had left Dalat to travel to other countries, I finally fell in with a group of girls with whom I felt that I belonged. As we spent more time together our bond grew stronger, and we began to share our interests, hobbies, and goals. An unspoken collective value among the group that we influenced each other to chase was high academic achievement and hard work in all of our academic pursuits. 

Although we were never callous enough to flaunt our accomplishments and minimize the others’ efforts, sharing grades on assignments, quizzes, and tests became something of a competition where the value of an individual within that friendship depended on whether or not they got an A on an assignment. Unknowingly, I found myself wishing for the academic failure of my closest friends just to get a little validation in my own pursuits. Speaking to Josiah Andrews, he gave me the insight that other friend groups struggle with this as well. He says, “Normally if we both got a grade in the same range we will tell each other, but normally we don’t tell each other grades out of respect for the person who didn’t do as well. There’s definitely pressure among my peers to do as well as I possibly can.”

By the time I reached high school, I was able to identify that the relationship between the four of us had become unhealthy and strained due to the amount of pressure we put both on ourselves and each other. After a few conversations with the group where we addressed the problem and decided that something needed to be done, we came to an agreement that we would cease to share all grades with one another. This way, we would not feel the pressure of being asked “what did you get?”, and could pursue high academic achievement for our own satisfaction and an effort to make the most of the talents God gave us instead of for the validation of the group.

For the first few years of high school where our classes lined up very closely, we followed this rule religiously and began to see the improvement in our ability to be together without the strain of competition. Studying and helping each other with our classes became easier and even more enjoyable when we could freely wish for the absolute best for each other. 

Although not every friend group will struggle with academic competition, in the developmental years of one’s life there seems to be an impulse to compare some aspect of being to those around you such as social, physical, or even spiritual. I believe that in order for a group of friends to grow closer and thrive, that element of competition must be acknowledged among the group and dealt with in a healthy way in order to be able to see each other as teammates and not rivals.