Question of the Day: Day 104
Is competition healthy?
Why or why not?
Why or why not?
posted by Michelle at 7:29 AM
We are looking for answers to some hard questions as we dig deep inside and explore our own core values and how that guides not just our own lives but the very world that we live in. These questions will be asked to a group of high school students but we would also like to hear from the world at large. While we hope to keep this forum wide open we do reserve the right to delete responses that we find to be offensive or combative in nature. Thank you for participating with us.
4 Comments:
We are hard-wired for competition - the strong survive and procreate - we compete with nature, with ourselves, and with others to survive.
However, there's a big difference between survival and life.
People who are in "survival mode" will compete agains other people to prove they are better. People who are focussed on living well have no need to prove anything - even if there are other people involved, the real competition for these people is with self - not to dominate or control, but to free and improve potential.
You can tell the difference between the two mindsets - at the end of a race watch the faces and actions of the participants.
The survivalists:
'winners' will be proud - dominating the attention, and expecting to be lauded.
'losers' will be angry or sad, ashamed or disgusted - many times this will be directed at someone else.
You could show up 30 seconds after the race is over, and you'd know just who won.
The lifeists:
will be thoughtful and considerate of themselves and others who participated. They will mostly be concerned with their performance.
If you showed up after the race that a "lifeist" won, you might not know, by their action which person won.
As a parent, I talk to my kids about competition, and tell them to do as well as they want to do - I tell them they know how well they can do, and that they can learn to do better, or find something they enjoy doing more. I show them that winning isn't everything - because you cannot win everything - failure is a learning tool, and each one of us excels at that which we love best.
I have known a lot of fierce competitors who really didn't like what they were competing at - wierd.
Competition itself is fine. As Wings and B said, it is the competitors that make the difference. I think the most honorable people compete against themselves. It brings out the best in them and also in those who must compete against another in order to feel good about themselves. In addition, it uplifts those who are merely spectators.
i think that compitition is heathy beacause it helps you get better at things when you do it repeatively
Competition, itself, is healthy. We compete all the time. We compete against other people, we compete against records, and we compete against ourselves. It is how we raise our self-standards and make ourselves strive to do and be better all the time.
Unhealthy competition is a whole different subject. Some people cannot compete without ugliness and animosity because they are sore losers or bad winners. Those people should stay home and take up meditation until they can come back with a better attitude.
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