Ever met someone in your life whose sole purpose of living seemed to compete?
Did you not wonder what keeps them going?
What was it with their unstoppable desire for power?
When would they be at peace?
I was born in a third world country where competition was inculcated from a naive age. It was hard to do things for the sake of doing. You did what you did coz it earned something. Everything else was deemed worthless.
Competition was a requisite to earn money. Money meant success and success brought happiness. Wasn’t that the key to living?
At least that’s what I grew up believing!
Later in my twenties, I moved to Europe.
I was amazed with the pace of life. Honestly, taken aback a bit. 🙄
People were satisfied with what they had. It didn’t matter what you did coz whatever you did earned a living. With that being sorted, there was time to discover likes (& dislikes). Whatever that meant! 🧘♂️ Success was more than money. It didn’t mean relentless chasing.
For the first time in many years, I stopped to examine the purpose of living.
What I learned in the process helped me pin down the roots of competition. In this post, I share my hard earned two cents of wisdom.
Comparison drives competition.
“What do you want?” is a scary question for most people. We are barely aware of what we want in life, let alone understand our purpose of living.
People define success by looking at what others want. Their concept of self-worth is based on external validation. As they compare and compete, surreal benchmarks of happiness get defined each day.
Key to remember though is that comparison comes from a place of insecurity. When we’re not sure of what we want, we look at what others want.
If we don’t ourselves define the meaning of success and happiness, it gets defined for us. Competition can then become an endless chase, a misery.
Competition, my mate is driven by Ego (mostly).
You’d be lying to say you have no ego. It’s that part of your personality that protects your unique identity. When “me” starts feeling put down, the competitive side kicks in. You won’t care what others think, say or feel, coz you’d want to believe you are right. You’d compete to prove yourself, to re-assure your identity. (to save your ego)
But does that make it a wrong reason? Err… I say no.
Ego is merely a self defence mechanism to protect your emotional well being. All it does is reinstate the fact that YOU exist, you are unique and you are right. It therefore drives you to compete, to put yourself out there in that chaotic world, where everyone else is also learning to co-exist.
Beware that some people are more egoistic than others. Naturally, they are therefore more competitive. Extreme ego leads to narcissism – one of the traits of overly competitive.
But some compete out of scarcity.
Now this one kinda seems obvious. When resources are limited, everyone pulls each other down to make the most of it.
Put with a bunch of crabs, trying to come out of shit hole, you’ve got to learn to compete. Don’t you?
What is tough then is to let go this tendency, when you’ve reached your place of abundance. That doesn’t happen automatically.
So, how do you know if you are an overly competitive person?
So one thing I’ve learned is that there is nothing wrong in being competitive.
Competition gives you a nudge to be your best self.
Being overly competitive though is problematic.
It affects YOU (without you realising it) and those around you (without you acknowledging it).
Ask yourself three questions.
1. Are you constantly thinking about getting ahead of someone?
2. You don’t worry how others feel about your chase?
3. Do you feel stressed emotionally and maybe physically?
If the answer to any of the above is yes, then you my mate are overly competitive. You are far from knowing your true purpose and cutting the chase is necessary.
Are you a sufferer making those around you suffer? (Irony, that is).
What would it take for you to realise this?
© Copyright 2022. Megha Gupta. All rights reserved.