The Finalist

By Chris Wei

(Opening line by Katie Chatterton)

Don’t carry the world upon your shoulders.  Don’t stretch yourself too thin.  Et cetera.  That’s the advice I get from my mother.

Don’t give in so easy.  Don’t sell yourself short.  Et cetera.  That’s the advice I get from my father.

It is hard sometimes to reconcile two widely varying worldviews like these.  It is hard to find a middle ground and discern where the truth is.  My mother and my father are both happy people but they look at most philosophical questions with opposite assumptions.  If you believe that a person’s philosophy is justified by their happiness level, then Mom and Dad are both right, even though they disagree.

It’s sort of confusing sometimes.  I have never thought of myself as much of a relativist before but in the past several years I have started to abandon the idea of absolute truth, of absolute right and wrong, of absolute certainty.

Not in all things.  There are a few things I still think are absolute.  Two plus two will always be four, innocent human life will always be worth protecting, and the original Star Wars trilogy will always be better than the prequels.

But other truths always seem to rely on circumstance.  Sometimes when I am exhausted from trying to do too much, I need to listen to my mother:  I need to stop trying to carry the world upon my shoulders.  But other times, when I am lazy, I think the opposite.  I don’t get lazy because I’m exhausted.  I get lazy because I’m depressed.  And I get depressed because I sell myself short and tell myself how incapable I am.  That’s when I need to listen to my father, and just keep pushing ahead.  “Don’t give in so easy,” he says.  Okay.  I won’t.

Yesterday is an example of when I needed to listen to my father.  I was a finalist in the annual Milwaukee hot dog eating contest.  And it was really difficult to get all those hot dogs down.  I wanted to give up.  My mother’s voice in the back of my head whispered, “don’t carry the world upon your shoulders.”  But she was wrong, of course.  The world, the world of hot dog championship, was indeed upon my shoulders and I needed to carry it.  I needed to gobble those wieners faster than my visiting Korean opponent.  For the honor of my family.  For the honor of Milwaukee.  For the honor of America.

The contest was grueling.  Sweat dripped down my brow as I stuffed the final six hot dogs in my mouth and started chewing.  My Korean enemy was finishing his last few as well, but chewing slower than I.  Maybe that was wishful thinking.  I couldn’t be sure.  My vision was blurring.

I closed my eyes and focused.

Eventually I prevailed.  But it was too much for my body to take, and I died.

When I got to Heaven, I was expecting St. Peter to put his arm around my shoulder and say, “your mother was right.  Don’t carry the world upon your shoulders.”  But he didn’t.

Instead, he shook my hand, smiling, and said “you sure ate a lot of hot dogs down there, son.”