The Second-Best Things
Aren’t free
I don’t know who ‘they’ are who said the best things in life are free.
Take oxygen, for example. We use it to break down food. We also use it to breathe. It looks free, but too much of it makes your cells crash in a burst of highly reactive molecules. Too little of it kills you by the build-up of acidic residues inside the cell. Oxygen has to be the right amount of right for it to serve you.
The ‘free’ statement calls either for a rephrase or more questions. Are the best things in life free or are they free only when they are the right amount?
Too little water leaves you thirsty and deranges your electrolytes. Too much will have a similar impact but might worsen your other systemic functions. It has to be just right. Goldilocks right.
Are the best things in life free really?
Yet, they say the best things in life are free. Who are ‘they’?
Best means someone or something emerged superior in a competition. It doesn’t have to be a competition as long as one can compare two or more variables. In the real world, you have to pay to get into the competition to know where you rank. Club managers pay to have the best players. Scientists pay to have their manuscripts in high-impact journals. Countries pay to have their athletes represented in the Olympics.
However, little has been said about the second-best things.
I liked being number two
I have never liked being number one.
I realized this as soon as I clinched the top position academically. Everybody expects you to continue being the top student. Anything but number one is sacrilegious.
That afternoon, my name was called by Mr. Jacktone Owino. He always announced the results for as long as I had joined high school. This time around, he called out my name as the top student.
Seated in the forest of heads inside our large hall, my physique popped up. I squeezed my knees past the row of seated students then jogged to the fore to stand with the other nine. The top ten students would be the first ones to be announced before the game flipped. The bottom ten would then be called to also receive their moments of fame. It was psychological torture.
I was the tallest in my class. I also wore one of the shortest shorts a high school student should ever have for my size. I had little room for argument. Now I was the top student, with briefs for shorts. I didn’t like the ‘fame’.
Now they’re on your neck. You have to preserve that spot. Maintain the top position. No rest. No sleep. Single goal. J. Cole raps:
Just like a travel pillow, we at your neck for the way you slept
Intolerable.
I preferred being number two.
In the second position, all the pressure is left to somebody else. You could be forgotten and still be confident in your abilities. Your only problem is yours to make and solve. One of the teachers would occasionally nudge you to seek the top slot but it would never be your problem.
To be the best on such grounds is not free. Wiggle room is thrown out the window the moment you become the top something at anything. The best student. Makes you question yet again if the best things in life are free. Or maybe the best things aren’t the best things in life.
The most expensive
Chanel, the famous fashion label company talks about the second-best.
Not in the way you might be thinking though.
Its founder, Coco Chanel had this to say:
The best things in life are free. The second-best things are very, very expensive.
About the second-best things, she didn’t lie. Partly.
Name your favourite singer, artist, athlete, company, device, drink, book, author (not me, sigh!), dancer, series, movie. The list continues. They have to pay to get known.
The manager of Barcelona had to pay to keep Messi in the team for as long as they could. When David Beckham joined Real Madrid, a world tour was fixed in the team’s schedule to market the best football club in the world that had recently signed the most expensive and popular football player in the world. The Lakers pay Lebron a hefty check as one of the greatest basketball players. Chivas employs ambassadors to market their drink. Singleton pays Biko Zulu to tell stories about the famous Kenyan celebrities. Huawei pays the marketing department to outcompete Apple whenever they release a phone. Stephen King needs an audience well prepared for when he makes a book tour after a fresh release. Marvel Comics needs a heavy check to budget for any of their Marvel series movies. Jay-Z influences who sings in the Super Bowl.
The best things in life are free. This is the default mode for the second-best things. The second best things are expensive. Messi is the only player to have won that many Ballon d’Or trophies. Lebron is the only player to break the 40,000 points ceiling. Marvel Comics shook the internet with the Avengers series. Jay-Z was the first rapper billionaire. J. K. Rowling was the first author billionaire. Taylor Swift crossed the billion-dollar mark solely from the instrument of her voice. If you ask any fan if they think these personalities are second-best, you might be asking for a fight.
Media shapes them to be the best. They are the most followed. They can easily cook a viral tweet. They have loyal fans. Almost cultish. The teams working on the back end have to pay to remind the world why they are the best. It’s an investment.
Thus, it also goes the other way — people will pay to see them, listen to them, be coached by them, and get entertained by them. It’s expensive to be the second-best.
Here’s a spanner thrown to the works as I put on my Hegelian hat — if cheap is expensive, does that mean cheap is the second-best? Are the people who we pay to see, view, and acknowledge cheap? If they had to pay to get there, are they really the best? Or do we settle for them because we don’t have the time and more importantly the resources to find the best? Where does that leave us?
We all know Julien Alfred, the leading Olympic champion in the women’s 100m dash. What about the others? I barely know their names, besides Sha’Carri Richardson, I don’t know the other ladies. They are simply ‘others’. It might sting to get such a label — others.
But it’s also expensive to rise above it. The toll could cut across family life. Commitment to friends. Personal sacrifices. All so you can become the best, and yet the best things in life should be free.
I wonder.
Best, the word, also leaves out time. Lyles was the best until this year at 200 meters. Makes you wonder if the best things in life are free only when they are the best things. Or when you’re the best.
Best I leave it there.
What I’m trying to say is…
Signed, the greatest yet
— J. Cole.
When J. Cole pulled out of the rap beef, he was in the spotlight for barely a week.
The scope rapidly shifted to Drake and Kendrick. Now that Kendrick won the battle, he’s under greater pressure than before. Many fans rank him the best current hip-hop artist. After the decision to make him the headliner of the 2025 Superbowl in Lil Wayne’s hometown, New Orleans, fans turned angry.
It’s very expensive to be the best. Even the second-best. Cole dodged a bullet. Arguably.
I don’t think the best things in life are free.
No such thing as a free lunch.
