INTERNET GRANDFATHER®

Win and Lose

                                        I've been thinking lately about competition. My dictionary tells me that competition is seeking some prize or objective when one or more rivals is seeking the same objective. We all know that competition is part of life. It begins at an early stage of life when we may compete for parental attention. It continues in school when we may compete for grades or awards. It continues throughout life, in almost everything we do. I'm not one of those who believes that competition is a bad thing; rather, I believe we must applaud competition but recognize that there can be unhealthy competition.

                                                  Healthy competition is competition that spurs us to improve our skills.  Healthy competition helps us to do our best. Healthy competition is competition with our own prior performance, competition that makes us strive to improve. Healthy competition may look to the performance of others as an ideal or standard to emulate but it doesn't depend upon what others are doing. Unhealthy competition is the competition that requires a winner and loser. It implies that if we succeed someone else must fail. In my ideal of healthy competition, where competition is a tool for improvement, there are no winners and losers. In my ideal, our fellow competitors, those whom we are comparing our results to, are not opponents. They are like our coaches, people to observe as a measure of our own performance.

                                                  There are many who seek to win and view others as losers. I see this in games, in everyday life, in business, in sport. These don't try to do their best but are satisfied with their performance if (and only if) it is better than a person they are looking at. They are unhappy if that person performs better than they did. This approach overlooks natural limitations and the pride we should all take in doing our best. This approach overlooks all of the other people in the world who may do what we're trying to do. The competition is flawed; we either become distraught because we aren't the best in the world, overlooking issues of talent and other advantages, or we become smug, overlooking our own advantages.

                                                  Let's compete only with ourselves. That is, recognize that our efforts should be to do the best we can and that it is only we who can keep us from doing that. It is only ourselves who hold us back. It doesn't matter what the person next to us is doing so long as we're trying our hardest, doing the best that we can. And as long as we do our best, we win and nobody loses. That's what I call healthy competition.

5-14-07