Competitive Spirit or Competitive Nature?

We, as humans, are a competitive species. It stems back to early days of man when one literally had to fight for food, for shelter and ultimately for survival. As humans evolved, the need to fight for the basics requirements of life began to subside. We had homes, we had jobs, and we had clothes on our back. We didn’t need to get up in the morning and wonder if we would live to see another day.

But the need to compete remained. It is a rare person who can honestly say that they are completely fulfilled and lack nothing in their lives. We all want something, and more often than not, that something needs to be fought for – in the way of competing for a better job, bidding more money for a home in a desirable neighbourhood, or sometimes even finding the perfect mate. Competition exists in some form in nearly every facet of our lives.

My own biggest competitor is myself. As long as I am achieving as much or more than I am personally capable of, I am usually happy. This drive to better myself is what motivates me on a daily basis. I don’t need to use another person’s achievements as a benchmark as long as I have my own. But that’s not necessarily true of everyone. Anthony Garcia in his article Decoding Personality: Why We Compete, Reward & Buy says, “Our whole lives are motivated by an internal sense of worth, measured by ‘rewards’ — both internal and external. We’re each addicted to our own reward system. It stains every action we take.”

Some people compete ferociously and will stop at nothing to try to win. I’ve seen soccer coaches push their young players to tears for the sake of the win. The losing team feels inferior and the players begin to believe that winning is the only outcome worth playing for. I’ve seen this intense competitive nature in my youngest son. He is very good at Wii Sports and will challenge me every chance he gets. He practices and plays more often than I do, so understandably, he is better. But there are the odd times when we play that I beat him. When my points begin to creep up he’ll pause the game and ask if we can start over stating: “My hand slipped”, “I didn’t mean to do that” or some other pretext. I refuse. He always has an excuse for why I beat him and none of them are because I played better. Some people may think this is cruel, but I believe in teaching my children the honest (and simple) facts of life, that you can’t win all the time, and that if you only play to win, no one will want to play with you anymore. Already his brother is hesitant to play against him for this very reason, and even less so when he rubs it in. This is a stain that takes a long time to wash out.

I try to instill in him the sportsmanship that I was taught in school years ago, which seems to be slowly fading in today’s society. It always seems to be about the win. For me, because I am not overly competitive, it’s more about the game, and sharing the experience with others: it’s hard for me to weigh in on why some people need to be first and/or best. I am a runner and there is competition at every race I have ever run in. I have never won a race, and yet I am not at all discouraged or disappointed by this. Simply put, I don’t expect to win. On the rare occasions when I have unexpectedly placed in my age category I am pleasantly surprised. An unknown author sums it up perfectly: “The principle is competing against yourself. It's about self-improvement, about being better than you were the day before.” A little competitive spirit is good for the soul. Like I wrote earlier, it’s part of what makes us human.