Should You Compete?

     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'.

Is Comparing Good in Real Life?

  During events, there are always competitions to see either who is the best in terms of physical, intellectual, spiritual, emotional and others of the same. But should we do the same when we are interacting with others? There is however, a slight difference between comparison and competition.

Comparison

Based on the definition stated in Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary : the process of comparing two or more things.

  In my view, if you were to compare yourself with others, and try to catch up out of envy, you are going nowhere. Chances are, you will end up trying to copy whatever that person has, leaving your own unique identity rotting away.  And if you are grumbling about why the other person have and you don't, stop. Every person has its own maze and different set of obstacles (Covey).

  However, if you are highlighting your own weakness, and see how others handle theirs to improve yourself, it is OK. You are finding guidance on how to overcome your weakness. Albeit copying how other does it sometimes work, in most cases you still have to modify it to suit your personal life.

  Example :- You are having problem with time management. Others overcome it by wearing a watch or having friends to remind them. Yours might be caused by not being motivated to attend events on time. Eventually, you might overcome this by having friends to remind you and reason with you why you should be on time. Over time, you can do this for yourself and depend less on others.

No one said self-discipline must be handled on your own. We sometimes need someone to lift us up when we fall.

 To summarize, you can compare yourself with others to improve yourself, but not to do it out of blindness just because the other side has it.

N.B. I do not own any pictures in this post. No copyright infringement intended.