This isn’t exactly a contemporary topic, but something that’s been on my mind a lot lately. For some reason I always end up reading books I disagree with, and even though I always get frustrated, it’s a lot more useful than having someone try to convince me of what I already agree with. I wish more people would spend time listening to the people they think are wrong than searching for reassurance of our own opinions. In that light I read a book a while ago about the detrimental affects of competition in our society. The book questioned why everything in this country in particular must be so based in competition, from our schools and careers to our hobbies and sports. Though the book annoyed me in general – it felt like it was written by someone still bitter about always getting picked last for the kickball team several years and doctoral degrees later – I thought it brought up some good points to think about. It tried to demonstrate how such levels of competition are neither inevitable, necessary, nor beneficial; instead our education and society should focus on collaboration and teamwork instead of wasting so much energy on competition. I spent some time contemplating whether or not my lifelong love of competition has been misplaced. Over the last few weeks and months I’ve paid particular attention as I watched the winter Olympics, NBA finals, Stanley Cup, and World Cup. When I watch these kind of events I am often inspired and wondered why it is that competition has such a special place in my heart.

I think competition leaves a bad taste in peoples’ mouths when the focus is not just on winning, but on making someone else lose. The complaints I’ve heard against competitive culture seem to focus on this as the definition of competition – making someone lose or being better than someone. Taken in this light, competition is a seemingly negative practice, our only success comes in others’ failures. However, in the best competitions I have been a part of, the other team or individual losing never even crossed my mind. Winning was the objective, not making anyone else lose. In my opinion, the great benefit of competition is learning to achieve a goal while overcoming obstacles. The fact that those obstacles are other people trying to achieve the same goal is, or at least should be, insignificant. In fact, the beauty of competition is that it motivates us to achieve a goal while providing dynamic obstacles for others to achieve theirs. I’ve participated before in activities specifically designed around collaboration and teamwork without competition, and have never seen one that was effective. The designed obstacles never provide the kind of motivation and learning that a person or group of people working against you does. In a sense, a competition is the best kind of collaboration; two groups or individuals agreeing to play by the same set of rules, working for the same goal while providing for each other obstacles to overcome. I’ve felt that way in many good competitions, win or lose; having a sense of gratitude that the opponent worked hard to help me better myself. I’ve been motivated knowing that to achieve my goal of winning, I had to work harder or perform better than someone just as motivated, talented, and capable as I was. I know this reasoning seems sports specific, but it works in other aspects of life as well. We are motivated to achieve in school because we know others with our same aspirations will be doing the same. We work hard at our job knowing we must do so to have the opportunities we and others are seeking. In every aspect of life, competition drives us to work as hard as we can, knowing someone else is doing the same.

I guess this optimistic view of competition requires a little faith in the “system.” We must believe that those who seek only to cut others down rather to improve themselves won’t be successful. I do have this faith, and find it simply a matter of choice. You can choose to be bitter about those few individuals that find success in selfishness, or you can choose to be inspired by those who labor with integrity. Many also argue that competition brings out the worst in human nature, and this sometimes appears true. However, I find that it only reveals the evil that already exists, and we can each choose how we react in such situations. It appears to me that the value in competition is evident in the many that are inspired by it. The shortcomings seem a matter of personal choices – choosing to focus on beating others rather than improving self, and allowing one’s self to become disillusioned by others’ choices. The strength of competition is that it is an excellent method for the ultimate goal of self improvement, one of the most effective tools we have to that end. The amazing and beautiful thing about competition is how everyone involved, both winner and loser, becomes better than they would have been able to attain without it. The problem is only in those individuals that seek to win as an end in itself. The solution is not to shun competition but to shun the tendency, in ourselves and others, to see winning, rather than growth, as the ultimate goal.