good is good enough

2-1 Neg and my debate career is over. Forever. Shoutout Dash and B.

Every time I see this clip, it annoys me. I’d recommend watching first before u see my thoughts so u can formulate ur own.

Giannis, you are wrong. Your season was a failure. You were a 1 seed who lost to an 8 seed in the first round. Your career might not be a failure…but the 2022-2023 season was a failure. I guess it depends on how u define failure. Some might say not passing. I think it’s not winning. Jordan would also call those seasons a failure. There are failures in sports. The hell u think Kwame Brown and Anthony Bennett were? There are failures in life. If there weren’t, the word wouldn’t exist. Jordan failed more than he succeeded. U failed. I failed too.

From Lake Travis in 2021 to the TOC in 2025 how many varsity tournaments did I win the final round in? 0.

I failed, but does that mean I wasn’t successful? Nah. I’d say I did a good job. I certainly could’ve done better. I definitely didn’t give my full effort, especially this year. But point is, success and failure don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

Chances are you failed too. Chances are you are also successful.

This post isn’t like my other ones. It’s not a story, a series of ratings, or a collection of ideas. It’s a journey, a rant, and my personal reflection on an activity that has undoubtedly changed me to an immense degree. Here’s a song u can listen to while u read. Shoutout mosey for the rec.

A lot of the time I feel like everything I’ve ever done, stems from a desire to make my parents, especially my father proud. Maybe that’s just the way I was raised but sacrifice is integral to my family, and I will always feel like I am indebted to my parents. Not just financially, but also emotionally. Making them happy will always make me happy and nothing will change that. Throughout elementary school, I strived for academic excellence to get free Krispy Kreme donuts and more importantly, make them proud.

I’m privileged. I won’t even try to deny it. I live in a very nice environment, surrounded by amazing people. There has not been a single night in my life where I’ve had to worry about my next meal, having a roof over my head, or my safety and security being ensured. I can’t say the same about my parents. They’ve worked tirelessly for me to excel and feel safe, and even though I didn’t choose to be born, I am glad I was, which makes me owe them.

I was in 5th grade when my dad told my sister to join the debate class at Kealing (our middle school). She did, and she hated it. He was disappointed, but understood. So I made it my mission to join debate. 6th grade rolled around and I joined the after school club. Within a semester, I also quit because it was boring.

I loved to compete though. I played football and basketball and made academic excellence an expectation rather than a goal. I fed my ego with praises and wanted to be the best at whatever I did. That mentality stuck with me for a while.

3 years later…

High school rolled around and I saw posters talking about LASA debate. I knew high school was the time to boost up my college application and I figured joining debate wouldn’t be a bad idea.

I got my friend Christian to join with me and a couple other freshman joined the club. Meetings every Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. At my first tournament, a local, I made it to elims before getting swiftly 3-0d. But the important part about that tournament isn’t the result, rather its the fact that I threw up.

From that point on I threw up the morning of practically every tournament up until Michigan this year, when magically, it stopped happening. And I think that’s also around the time I stopped caring about this activity.

been fitted up since day 1 ^

I look back today…

and I realize that debate made me miserable. My competitive spirit made me far too paranoid and worried. The two months between the TOC and camp I felt at peace. A boulder lifted off my shoulders, but I always knew it’d come crashing back down on me.

What made me this miserable?

I have no clue. If you asked me if I liked the activity I guess I’d say kind of. There are parts I hate. There are parts I like. I’ll talk about both later, but it was also expensive. It was completely irrational to stay. Yet, I did.

But I think the reason why I loved it is also the reason I hated it. Pressure. Expectations. And my love for winning. The pain that came with losing made me fear it, but I was obsessed with the idea of winning. Of feeling dominant. Of feeling like a champion. That feeling will drive u to crazy lengths, making irrational decisions for the sake of…one…more…win.

What I liked about debate…

This post so far sounds overly negative. But there are a lot of things I really liked about this activity. I think the easiest way for me to describe it’s impact on me might sound corny, but I have no other way of expressing it. Debate gave me another life.

No one at school knows the people in debate and vice-versa. And I appreciated that a lot. It added flavor to my life and friends I thought I’d never find. Debate has a very small and unique community with like minded people but I also think that becomes extremely problematic to some degree.

I think debate helped me. In obvious ways like getting into college and non-obvious ways like humbling me. If you put me and 10 other average debaters in a room, unless Gautam or Harris are also in the room, I’m probably the dumbest person there. It exposed me to brilliant people that I’m sure will go far.

It let me win and I liked winning. I always tried to look for my superpower and debate kind of made me find one. I won more than I lost this year and I’m appreciative of that. Even if it didn’t come with any titles.

It introduced me to some of the best coaches I’ll know and I credit all of my success to them for investing in me and staying behind my back. I loved my team.

I had a great time at camp this summer and last summer (for the most part when my eyes were working). There were some days and things I regret about my experience, but overall it was a good time and brought me closer to a lot of people. Yes I made, lost, ruined, and reconnected some friendships, but I think that’s just how it be sometimes.

I loved it the most when I honestly stopped caring. I pinpoint that to sometime between Early November to Late December. A lot of very annoying (for lack of a better word) and stressful things happened to me in that time period which gave the chance to take a step back. And after that, it’s been pretty good.

Finally, I met some of the best people I know through debate and grew closer to them because of it. People like Mike, Alex H, Pranav, Iman, Jerry, Alliana, Anita, Jordan (s), Dylan, Russell, Gautam, Nihar, Ahsan, Nina and so many more would be completely unknown to me without this activity.

I’ll also say. Now that it’s all over I’ll remember more good things than bad things. I love these people and I loved doing this, EVEN IF I grew to resent it. I’m never gonna forget my first win. I won’t forget my last loss either, but I’ll feel happier about the first win than I will sad about the last loss. Idk if that makes sense.

What I didn’t like about debate…

I don’t care for the resolution or the activity and the way it’s constructed itself. This is more of my opinions regarding the community. And when I talk about the community I am referring to my experiences with the general population of competitive national circuit (TOC) debaters.

I’m inserting this rant from SOTD here because I think it applies to debaters more than anyone else. Debaters are often thankless.

”I hate when people are super super self-deprecating. I know I used to do this so it might sound hypocritical, but when people say “I’m so stupid”, “I’m not gonna get in to college”, “I suck at debate”, etc. It gets rly rly annoying. There’s a difference between being realistic and upmost pessimistic. There’s a difference between wanting support and constantly needing reassurance from people not equipped to handle your insecurities. Saying ur bad at something doesn’t make it look like u have a small ego, it just makes u look like ur down terrible for attention and u want someone to console u. We ain’t therapists mf. Also if u suck think about what ur saying about everyone you’ve accomplished more than. What are you saying about them? I’m not sayin u should go out and tell everyone ur that mf, I’m just sayin you don’t gotta be so mean to urself outwardly even if u believe it. If u actually feel that way I can assure u that u are wrong and we can talk about it, but it’s pretty easy to tell if it comes from a genuine point of view or an attention seeking point of view. Idk if that makes sense.” - Bilal 2 months ago

I used to be guilty of this. Debate magnified it. Debate magnified the worst qualities in me. Because of debate, I became more insensitive, egotistical, and generally self-deprecating. And that started very early on.

Freshman year, I lost one of my best friends. Not literally, they are still alive Alhamdulillah. But we partnered together. Didn’t do too great in the novice division and I was frustrated. I became cold. I internalized my losses as her fault rather than realizing I was a novice, and I was also making mistakes faster than Henry Ruggs drives. As a result, I didn’t treat her well. I didn’t talk to her the way I talked to my best friend. Our friendship kind of fizzled out after that. I’ve apologized several times, and I’m very sure she doesn’t care about it and never really did to an extreme extent. But after that tournament, I lost the closest friend I had.

Competition makes u do things that u wouldn’t typically do and it comes with consequences. And the fact that it took me 3.5 years to come to this realization is another huge flaw of mine and I’m far from being a good person. I was making my family proud, but disappointing myself.

But at least I’m confronting it rather than ignoring it.

This was my biggest issue with debate. It made me a worse person. That’s not me blaming the activity. That’s me blaming myself for who I was in the activity, and how that spilled over outside of the activity.

I was selfish. I did things out of personal interest. I was emotionally detached.

But the worst thing I did is another thing debaters do a lot. I never showed appreciation. I blamed judges, my partners, my coaches, and whatever else I wanted to. If I couldn’t find anything, I blamed the world. I didn’t take accountability. Most of y’all don’t either.

I hear so much partner shaming to this day. I get the frustration. I did it too. I know you look around and see other people working half as hard as you doing twice as good as you because they have a better partner, or they get good judges, or they have a big dropbox. I get it. I just feel like when we do it we just become worse people. We treat other people in ways we regret u kno?

another oscs flick. shoutout chuck ^

I feel like it’s worthwhile to sometimes just accept how things be sometimes. When’s the last time u told ur partner “thank you”, “I’m proud of you”, “I know we always don’t get along but I appreciate you”.

You could always be in a situation where nobody wants to debate with you, and all your other friends are complaining about results at a tournament YOU COULDN’T EVEN ATTEND. - True story for one of my friends

You could be in a situation where your entire coaching staff leaves out of nowhere. - True story for one of my friends

You could be in a situation where your literal state determines where u can and can’t debate. - True story for one of my friends

You could be in a situation where u can’t afford the next meal, let alone steep travel costs. - True story for one of my friends

I didn’t have to deal with any of that and I feel bad for complaining sometimes.

When’s the last time we felt deep down in our heart that we already have a lot?

I’m not saying we should always find ways to be happy and never get upset. It’s great to get things off ur chest and that doesn’t make u a bad person, but from my experience—debaters in general are overwhelmingly negative and they could learn how to view things with different perspectives.

I think this stems from the fact that a lot of debaters are also pretty spoiled. I am too. Most of us that are competitive on the national circuit come from wealthy backgrounds, maybe go to private schools, can afford OOS tuition, etc. I think acknowledging that is important.

This brings me to another and probably the final large critique I have of the community and it is that some people can be pretty judgy.

There’s this superiority complex or something idk how to really explain it, but a lot of people in the community assume that if u are not a “great” team, u are stupid. If u are not on the coaches poll or whatever other silly metric people use for rankings, then you are just not a good enough person to deserve respect. It’s a bias that people have. The other thing that people do this with is college. If u don’t get into a prestigious school you are worth less, or deserving of less respect than someone who did get into a great school is.

Look, I’m not saying getting into a great school is a small achievement. It’s huge and if that’s you, you deserve it and you’ve earned it. But I’ve never felt like that makes u better than anyone else u kno wat im sayin.

The problem is I did all of these things for a while. I hate the person I was up until around the time I started SOTD and went bald. I’m still working on getting better. but I internalized a lot of those traits and a lot of this blog is just me criticizing a lot of the things I have done, but I do think that surrounding myself with other people in this activity is a big part of that.

^ The other thing I hated about this activity was debating Christians dumbass fiat Ks

Outro

I can’t possibly detail 4 years, 3 summer camps, and 54 tournaments in a 10 minute post. Several aspects of my career weren’t even hinted at but I’d summarize my experience with this:

If someone asked me the following question: “If you could go back in time to 2021. Would you join debate? Would you do it all over again?” — I would honestly answer with. No. I wouldn’t join.

but

If someone asked me the following question: “Do you regret joining debate and staying in it for 4 years” — I would honestly answer with. No. I don’t regret it.

Idk if that makes sense.

Debate’s been real. Debate’s been fun. Debate hasn’t been real fun. Regardless, Thank You.