Many Uni students (like students everywhere else) participate in a wide variety of activities. As a result, we all know people who are incredibly talented in certain academic subjects, sports, music, or art.

There are also students who have gotten really good at organizing events and running clubs, whether it's to benefit a charity or to organize political thought and action. While I'm not sure if this is a talent, the amount of hard work put into planning these events definitely deserves a similar level of recognition.

But this isn't really a "let's pat ourselves on the back" blog entry. Just the opposite, in fact. Too often people appear overly self-satisfied with their accomplishments, or worse, just really happy with themselves.

When your friend says how bad his/her fellow teammates on the varsity pickleball team are, they could have a valid point. Or, your friend could just be trying to say that he/she is better. Or, your friend actually isn't trying to say that at all, but a bunch of people who don't like your friend get mad about it anyway, and use it as an excuse to prove how much better they are than that stupid little egotistical loser who thinks he/she is so great at pickleball.

(For those of you who don't know, pickleball is basically an underfunded version of tennis.)

Some of this attitude could be due to the fact that oftentimes the credit for a group or team's accomplishments is largely given to the leaders and individuals who have in theory put in the most work. While this focus on individuals is understandable, it sometimes leads to feelings of jealousy, or at least clamoring within the group for the recognition.

There are also people who appear to be proud for having achieved quasi-accomplishments like being "popular," or "not ridiculous." Whether or not someone is considered well liked or ridiculous would vary quite a bit depending on whom you asked and is really not something that can be quantified. It just depends on people's opinions. Some students solve this problem by reminding everyone how cool they are, but how often does that actually make them seem less cool?

So when does being confident turn into being egotistical? To me, being confident is knowing you're good at something, but crossing the line is consciously trying to make everyone else know you're good at it too. Of course, I probably stole this from Oprah, and even then it still isn't an excellent definition.

I guess I'll never figure out the answers to these questions, and obviously the majority of accomplished students are nothing like this at all. In fact, I'm basing this entire blog after the experiences I've had with maybe four people at most. I really need to get out more.

Oh well, just remember that if you're really better than everyone else, then people should be able to realize it without your saying so. It's worked pretty well for me so far! (Kidding ….)