An Open Letter to all my proclaimed "rivals"

To Dear A, B, C and well I don’t know how many else are there,

Hi. You know me. Or atleast you think that you do. But the fact is that you don’t.
Because if you did, you would have known I’m not a suck up like you all. I’ll not go and schmooze to anyone because they will pay me money or give me a false sense of respect.
I was raised with the principles to work hard and let my results do the talking.

Hell, my corporate job was a disaster because I never sucked up to anyone. It was a place I often detested because it was amalgamation of fake personalities like yourselves. And even if I wanted to because it would pay me money to go to races and get me leaves, I just couldn’t bring myself to be one of you.

It is because my life is about staying true to myself. At the end of the day, we all have to go and reflect back on ourselves and I’m still incapable of understanding how you manage to live with yourselves.

You, A, I won’t take your name because there are a ton of people out there who respect you. I thought you were my friend. I really looked up to you. And then you had the audacity to say “Arunaabh can’t run a fast marathon. He is only good to run half marathons.”?
That’s fine; I shoved it down your throat and ran a Sub 3. But then you went out of your to bitch as I did my Ironman, my 7*70.3s and then my Ultraman.
I reached out to you because I thought you are an athlete and asked you for a bike sponsorship, but you changed the topic. I praised you, infront of everyone, telling them about your amazing improvements and story and blah blah bullshit, you were there all along with a knife in my back.

And you B, I don’t even know what your problem is? What did I do for you to go out on limb and try to intimidate me (for which you need to try much harder bro, I don’t get intimidated by people like you).
Heck, I admired you at one point. Awestruck is the word. It was after you demonstrated a “responsible” coach’s diet of tones of processed sugars and unhealthy food, I lost a little respect but still I had nothing but good words to say.
You don’t make the cut to the list of people I respect because of who you are and who you choose to be.

The people I respect are the ones who I know have given everything else and sacrificed a lot to be where they are today. They are scientific, mature and very responsible adults and not a bawling bald baby like you.

I have no idea what problem you have with me and my success. Is it my honesty?
I’m sorry, I’m not a scalpel, I’m a blunt object and I’m not afraid of calling a spade a spade.

Is it because despite having no money and practically no support I go out and do races and even with your deep pockets you are stuck where you were years back?
Well, too bad. Because people can and will look out for those who work hard.

Is it because I rose up too fast?
Again, come and train with me for a week. And come and look at my life. I was kid who suffered from Bronchitis and could not breathe and had a mother who never gave up and built this machine. I respect my body and I honor my mother and father’s hardwork by giving my 100% and I, will never apologize for my talents.

You know what the difference is between you guys and me?
I am happy when someone else succeeds. Even when you both succeed I’m filled with a sense of pride that someone from my very own country came out and gave it their all. And there is even more respect in the sense that you don’t misguide people by mislabeling your achievements.
You on the other hand twist and turn and try to stab anyone who is doing better and I don’t even know what you are gaining from it.

Competition is healthy. If I am going out and doing something, why don’t you top me there?
People set benchmarks and then there are two types of people to approach them: Ones who watch and burn and the others who use them to vault higher.

Next time, if you have a problem with me or have something to say about me, have the guts to say it to my face.  This is not a TV Soap Opera and you aren’t the plotting vamps. You are better than this.

 If you want to stand on my shoulder and call yourself tall, that is fine. But I am not going to sit, listening to people lie and back-bitch about me because that is not cool.

I respect you as athletes but not idolize you as I don’t respect you as human beings.

When you do well in your next race, I’ll be the 1st one to happily cheer for you and congratulate you because the success of others makes me happy.

And frankly, you aren’t even worthy of being my rivals to stop behaving like that. You’re not worth my headache.

Regards,
Arunaabh Shah

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