One day you’re the hammer, the next you’re the nail

Sometimes you eat the bear and sometimes the bear eats you. That’s pretty much how it goes in life. You can’t win them all. Fortunately, not everything is a contest and, sometimes, being second is still pretty cool.

To be sure, as Mel Brooks once said, “It’s good to be the King.” But if you can’t be the King, you can still distinguish yourself, right? Okay, probably no one will remember you for not being the king but the point is sometimes you finish second and you just have to put a happy face on it.

This is true not only for people but also for cities. The City of Atlanta has distinguished itself in so many ways. There is a long list of things in which Atlanta excels, things for which we can genuinely claim bragging rights. But, try though we might, we’re not first in everything. And while Atlanta might finish second in more than a few things, it’s still pretty cool…as you’ll see in this week’s Stories of Atlanta.