My Two Favorite Tweets from Year-End 2021

The grace of shared joy and success

Silhouette by mohamed_hassan. Blue background by geralt. Both from Pixabay.

Many of us come to believe that to occupy “second place” in any regard — for example, in the number of days on TV, on in a pile of dollars — is to be a “loser” and therefore “erased.” This is false.

Witness: Larissa Kelly, the woman who previously held the record of the highest overall Jeopardy! earnings. In her class-act tweet on Christmas Eve, she acknowledged Amy Schneider as the new recordholder.

Schneider responded in kind, acknowledging that someday another woman will smash the record and that it will be wonderful to watch her, too.

This exchange might seem unremarkable. Why are they my two favorite tweets? Here is the context, and here are some lessons from it.

The Context