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I’VE ALWAYS HAD a distaste for competition.
I never liked the feeling of trying to outdo another person.
But competition is a fact of life, from the lowliest worms to
the executive on Wall Street. Competition is like gravity. We
may not like it, but there it is anyway, having its effect on
our lives, regardless of what we may think about it. There’s
nothing nasty about it — gravity doesn’t care whether
you hurt yourself when you fall or not.
If you have two organisms competing for
a limited resource, say, a lion and a hyena competing for the
carcass of a gazelle, if the lion doesn’t want to compete
or feels competition is wrong, then the hyena will eat and the
lion will go hungry. If this goes on, the lion will die of starvation
and the hyena will have many offspring. Nature is not being cruel.
Competition is the way of the world. It’s the way life on
this planet became so complex and beautiful and amazing. It’s
the way your incredible brain evolved. Ultimately, competition
is good. It makes things better. It forces improvement.
I’m a writer. There are places that
pay for writing. And there are other writers in the world who
would prefer that the money paid for that skill go into their
bank account rather than mine. The money can’t really go
to every writer’s bank account. There’s a selection
going on. Certain things will be selected for and certain things
will be selected against. It is a competition, whether
I want to acknowledge that fact or not. And, of course, the ones
who compete the best will always out-compete the ones
who don’t compete as well.
Competition can be an ugly affair, typified
by the presidential elections with all the mudslinging and backstabbing.
Although that’s obviously competition, so is what goes on
at the Olympics.
The presidential elections are ugly, but
the Olympics are beautiful — whether you win or lose, you
can still shake the hand of your competitor in friendship. You
can compete with honor. You can compete for noble reasons. You
can compete for the sake of others or for a cause you believe
in. The Spirit of the Games raises competition to the elevated
place it should hold.
Consider it in this light and you can learn
to appreciate competition. It’s important because you must
either compete well, or those dreams you have will not happen.
Whatever your job, this is true. If you’ve had, like me,
a distaste for competition, start changing your attitude. Learn
to appreciate and even like competition. Because the truth is,
if you can compete well, you can fulfill your desires. If you
can’t or don’t compete well, or if you don’t “play
the game” at all, someone else will get the raise or promotion
or position, someone else’s view will hold the floor, someone
else’s vision will be realized, and your dreams will become
pipe dreams. It’s up to you. You can compete, play well,
and know you’ve done your best, or not. It’s your call.
Learn to like competition
and compete with honor. |
