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Graham Christian wrote:
Nice 'words' to do with competition and how natural it is but is it true?
Look around yourself even at things, look around yourself at the people you met today or ones you know, look around yourself at what happens at work.
If you actually look you will find competing, operating from the competitive mind, is completely crazy. It always leads to trouble and always makes things harder and generally makes things worse, in fact it always does.
This is different to a specialized arena. Thus we have sports and games and that's where it's a jointly agreed upon activity given rules of play.
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I disagree with "always." I do look around; I do "actually look" and see ridiculous examples of competition all the time. In fact many of my oldest posts here involve me making the case against competition in general. Still, simply put, forms of competition are good, and I'm not just talking about sports and games.
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I see people at work competing with things even and suffering the consequences. A builder who is trying to do something, like say remove a screw or hang a door or whatever. If it's a bit troublesome and he decides to look at it as the door is opposing him he then starts swearing at it and blaming it and trying to force it and ouch!!! Yeah, something 'bad' happens. He caused it, yet he blames the door. Crazy
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I've been in a similar situation, where I viewed the installation as a competition between myself and it. The difference is that when I was frustrated I didn't let it cause me to lose control. Competition doesn't necessitate animonsity. The problem here is animosity, not a competitive mindset. In other jobs I've competed with my co-wokers. I held no animosity for them whether or not I "beat" their pace. I was competing to the benefit of us all.
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If you work in an office or environment with people working closely together and there's that one who is always trying to show they are better, to impress the boss, to do all kind of annoying things and then act innocent, all kinds of methods. Oh the competitive mind. This person thus has to prove and therefor proving to the boss how 'bad' the others are become all part of the game. Lies become useful to this end. On and on. This fellow or woman is heading for a good beating or come uppance, after annoying and possibly destroying a few lives on the way of course. Oh the competitve mind.
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Again, I don't see those as the necessary product of competitiveness. Insecurity and selfishness, maybe. You seem to think that being competitive means you're always working to detract from others' situations or goals. That is only the cheap variety of competitiveness. The good stuff is where it's done while actually caring about the other guy; in ways that pushes all to apply themselves to their highest abilities. In my opinion the best competition is the kind which inspires an understanding of "Masakatsu Agatsu," and that is not relegated merely to sports and games, but rather pertains to something considerably more wide-reaching.
Take care,
Mat