A scramble here, a scramble there, be it admission for a seat to an academic course or occupation of a chair to a prestigious position, landing a role under a renowned banner or simply being a part of the team playing eleven, competing has never been more intense. In the days of yore, soldiers went to battle to fight to capture new territory or to regain old; air raids were conducted to destroy enemy property; and warships went across borders to conquer the seas. Today, this spirit is no longer restricted to countries going to war. 'WAR' has indeed become a battle cry of youth and adults alike. In normal day-to-day living, a boy is no longer just a boy he is more akin to a warrior! Competition has a ruthless way of life- a frighteningly and obsessively unhealthy way of life.
But what of healthy competition. you may ask? Doesn't competition bring out the best in people? And people who do not compete, lack ambition don't they? And don't they lack zest and verve to succeed, and in turn develop a laid back approach to life? How can a person be a go-getter if he isn't in the running? How would a person know and exhibit his true potentials and talent unless he goes up against others? these are some common questions proponents of competition usually resort to when discussing this topic. So what really being put forth here, then? Doing away with competition? Curbing ambition? Abolishing it?
That would be unrealistic and unimaginable. There is no denying reality and existence of competition. And as the population increases, we will be faced with more of it; too many contenders, too few seats available, a plethora of expertise, not enough vacancies!
The question is can we recognize and deal with ugly side of competition? Be vigilant to protect ourselves from self-defeating ambition? Recognize when it starts becoming detrimental, over aggressive and begins to do more harm than good?
So am I against your powerful drive to get ahead in our field of calling? No, not if drive has sensible components of strong preferring to do well in whatever you choose. Just as soon as your preference to do turns into a need, a demand, or an unrealistic expectation, your behavior in pursuing academics, sports or any other activity becomes truly neurotic.Why because as soon as you need to succeed you leave yourselves with no other alternatives, only the possibility of choices, one of which is highly avoidable (misery), you may use methods, fair or foul, to satisfy the other i.e success. The need to succeed is at the root of all competition.
There is a little wrong if you strive for achievement in itself. This kind of striving in fact, is one of the main ways by which you will be a truly committed, active and creative human being. B ut, it is unfortunately not in the nature of man try and achieve for achievement sake; it is more in our nature to strive to perform well in order to gain personal worth. We unfortunately tend to measure ourselves by the standard of our performances and if the later is inadequate, we usually consider our total being as inadequate. It is the general tendency to evaluate ourselves on the basis of what we do. We erroneously believe (and society perpetuates the belief) that if we are good at sports, 'we' become good, and if we are bad at academics, 'we' become bad!
Nturally then, if you rate yourself on the basis of what you do or achieve, you also rate other in a similar manner. When you make your global rating of your 'you-ness', you also make a global rating of other 'otherness'. You now not only stop at measuring yourself according to your performances, you also begin to measure and rate others according to their. And in your rating game of being better, greater, and stronger than others, a one-up man-ship game ensues.
At this note I would conclude by leaving behind few questions that are needed to be answered by your own.
Is feeling good about YOU now based on success?
Is there a need for you to compete just in order to fell better about YOURSELF?
Will you not begin to take pleasure from your pursuits just for the pure joy and thrill they bring to you?
Would you not feel more inclined to experiment and explore areas that were untapped, for fear that YOU would amount to a failure in case you failed?
What would you rather feel? Chronically taut or refreshingly relaxed??
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