Evolution forces us to sit with a harsh truth: the fittest will survive, and everything that fails to adapt in response to its environment will perish. But even the very features that give certain organisms an advantage do not maintain their favourability in perpetuity. At times a trait survives generations not because it is good, but because it is not bad enough for there to be negative consequences. Until of course it snowballs. When the environment shifts and a trait begins to work against the very organism it once served, biologists describe it as maladaptive: “a trait, behaviour, or characteristic that is more harmful than helpful to an organism’s survival and reproductive success”. The punishment for remaining stagnant or not changing fast enough is extinction. I believe this applies to human behaviour as much as it applies to nature. That the very habits we build to survive one environment can quietly turn against us when the environment changes.
The Making of a Competitor
I attended a primary school just North of Harare CBD between 2005 and 2008. There was nothing unique about my school when compared to others around it, but having later moved to South Africa, there were certain things that stood out: competition.
From the first grade our teachers would arrange us at different desks depending on the grades we achieved on the last test, with the top performing kids being seated closest to the teacher. And at the end of the year, our classes would be reorganised based on grades, with the top performing students from all classes being placed in one class. My school had about five separate classes in each grade: Classes B, C, D, E and F.
I had attended creche as a child and at the time the Zimbabwean education system did not have an official kindergarten phase, and so we started Grade 1 on different footing. I knew how to read and write and some of my peers did not. So in the B class I always sat at the front and my teacher loved our desk. Every week we would be subjected to a spot test, out of ten. And not only would we be reorganised according to how well we performed, but we were also subjected to lashings in front of the class for every question we got wrong.
We were not mature enough to realise the gravity of the situation and the imprint it would have on our lives. And so we laughed at the kids who got more lashings. We laughed at the kids who sat at the desk just after ours. This forced me to look at my peers as competition. Every week we were not only competing to see who could get the fewest lashings but we were competing for seats at the “best” desks. This was a game of musical chairs with extreme consequences. And it forced me to look at my peers differently. We were not in grade one together, but against each other. I had to outperform you because the punishment was a public and painful humiliation. I had to outshine you when a teacher would ask questions because the mere perception that I may be outshone would threaten my position.
The Environment Shifts
As I started first grade my father moved to South Africa, and my mother joined him a year later. My brother and I stayed with our nanny, which in a way helped to ease the pressure. I would relay my grades over text messages and not in person. There was a vulnerability to the in-person reviews because our report cards would have inscribed on them our academic position in the class as well as the grade. So the comparison never stopped. Comparison with others and against yourself. Nothing worse than chasing yourself.
My brother and I later moved to South Africa. A new country, a new school, but ultimately the same me. I had built up habits that were too deeply ingrained to let go of. Life did not allow me that grace. The focus on competition and academic excellence was not the same here. People saw me through a different lens. It was either that they would not look closely enough to see that Zimbabwean is not all I am, or they would see just faintly enough that the stereotypes they had of my country was all I could be.
I honestly wondered whether people were not aware that they were dealing with a former Grade 4B student. And I quickly learnt that in order for people to see me, I needed to do something worth noting, so that I could somewhat control the narrative. Excelling in academics to prove that I was competent became my crutch. This was how I learnt to demonstrate value. At least now I could be the nerdy Zimbabwean kid. This to my teachers made me come across as somewhat confident because I took every opportunity to voice my opinion, and if you dared say something in contradiction with what I said… hell hath no fury like a teenager that feels as though they have to justify themselves. I would argue. For the sake of it. To the very end. Anything for my seat at my desk.
Claws in the Professional Arena
As I stepped into my professional life and got to work with different teams, I carried all of this with me. Every disagreement felt like a threat to my position. If someone challenged my approach, the kid from the B class would show up, the one who learnt that being outshone meant punishment. So I would argue. I would dig in. I would carry things alone because asking for help felt like conceding that I was not capable. I never wanted to put things up to fate when it came to how I was perceived, so I learnt to shoulder it all myself.
In my mind, I can do it better because I have all the parts. But what I actually had was all of my insecurities, my blind spots, which prevented me from seeing how to effectively work with others.
Learning to Adapt
But I have been learning. Slowly and imperfectly. I have had to renegotiate my relationship with opinions that differ from mine. I have learnt that the goal of disagreement is not to reduce the other person’s opinion such that mine rises, but rather that we share a common goal and have two or more approaches towards it. We should take the best from both such that we still accomplish it. I have had to learn that collaboration is not someone else finishing my sentence in a way that diminishes it, but in a way that completes it.
Of course this is not to say that everything is perfect. I still make mistakes, and I try to be conscious of them. The list of apologies has grown. And I can see all of this because I chose to accept that the very tendencies that allowed a young kid from Harare to navigate a new country with a complicated history, a new medium of instruction in English, were no longer helpful as I engaged with colleagues and navigated my own personal relationships.
Now that I was not at war, I needed to put my guard down and realise that I was actually never at odds with anyone. I grew up in an environment that made me feel that way. An environment that rewarded me for being ultra-competitive and for always trying to outshine the next person. Such tendencies are likely viewed as arrogant and do not make for a good team player. But the switch was difficult. It is difficult. Because it is the world telling me that the very claws I used to propel myself here can not only harm me, but they can be used to hurt others.
I did not choose the environment that nurtured this, or the incidents that forced me to fight with my claws. But I bear the responsibility of deciding whether or not I change. What got me here, won’t get me there. If I am unwilling to let go of my claws or to repurpose them, then this may be as far as I can go. And so the change continues.