There are some times, where you would find someone who is as good as you, or otherwise, better than you. You then proceed to set him or her as a benchmark and always compete in order to get the higher marks in class; more appraisals in work; or more public attention.
In my case, when I have the urge to compete, I tend to become hostile towards the person I am comparing myself with. By hostile, I mean that I would become selfish with whatever information that I would share, become more individualistic, and made sure I took credit for whatever task I was involved in.
To me, this competition was good, because I saw it as a way to improve myself. I couldn't see why I should even think about not doing so.
Then one day, by coincidence (or maybe not), I played chess with an acquaintance for the sake of it. He raised the issue of people who are competing in their class etc and said it was bad. He explained by sharing with me a parable. It went something like this :
Two fresh graduates went for an interview at the same company. Both of them were at the waiting room. Both knew they were after the same job, and the feeling of competing for this particular job against each other was in them. So during the wait for their call, they were silent. They kept their thoughts to themselves and never spoke to each other.
One of them was finally called to enter the interview room. The interviewer and interviewee greeted, and the basic interviewing process was carried out. At the end of it, the interviewer said this : " You are good. And because of that, I am offering you a salary of 2,000 for this job. This is a good pay because I am considering to give the other guy only 1,000 since he has lower qualification than you." The interviewee was pleased.
Later, the second interviewee entered the interview room after the first one left. After going through the same basic interviewing process with him, the potential employer gave the same statements earlier on to this second interviewee. The interviewee was pleased.
As you can see here, both never knew they were given the same salary. Each thought of themselves higher than the other. So the lesson here is communication.
Everyone holds different information related to a specific topic. Different opinion, and different solutions. If we are to shun ourselves from other people and have the mine-is-better habit, we will not succeed in this face paced world. In this case, if both interviewees communicated and knew about each others background, they wouldn't be easily cheated by the interviewer. We desperately need each other to see the world in many ways as possible, because the world is not just black and white, it is colourful.
If I never made the effort to befriend this acquaintance, I would have not discovered a part of this truth. So the next time you see a new schoolmate, or a new colleague, be open and say 'HI'.
