Why competition sucks

Competition not only sucks, it could even be unhealthy.

From kindergarten on, we are all taught to compete. After all, how do you get ahead on planet Earth if you don’t compete and win?

One of the very first lessons we learn about competition in kindergarten is musical chairs. What a game. The music stops, you grab a chair, and try to maul anyone who gets in your way.

It’s my belief that competition should be listed as the eighth deadly sin. Think about it. The absolute best that anyone can possibly do is the absolute best that anyone can do. How does competition change or improve on someone’s best?

Each and every one of us has something that we’re really good at. And the most fortunate people in the world are those who have discovered what their good at and can make a living at it.

If the human species could only drop the concept of competition, it’s just possible there would be no more wars and a lot less of the man-made horrors that plague humanity.

So prove me wrong. If sports teams, or presidential candidates, or administrative assistants, or students just did the best they could possibly do, why would the idea of competition need to come into play?

Perhaps humans have some kind of built-in need to be better than others.

But hear this. I have held this belief since I was a child. I spent my life working at what I was good at and I've made a decent living. And never once did the concept of competition enter my mind. All I did was the best I could possibly do. And it had nothing at all to do with anyone else's best.

Okay, fire away and tell me all the reasons you think I’m wrong. And I promise I won’t compete with you by trying to outdo your post.

It might not be a necessary element for all people (such as yourself), but it seems to be for most.

I'm reminded of Lisa Simpson: "Grade me... look at me... evaluate and rank me! Oh, I'm good, good, good, and oh so smart! Grade me!"

Read Kohn's book, "The Case Against Competition". It's quite mind-expanding.

put everyone on an even playing field and make them compete against each other within a defined context.

So you can train to become better at sports, but you may not use steroids.

You can play harder than the other time but you may not gun them down in order to win.

But as humans, we really do our best work when we cooperate with each other.

then I think competition can be a healthy thing.

...and I agree.

Competition can teach kids (and some adults) how to be good winners, as well as good losers. It can also promote cooperation as well as other important social skills.

is an expected response from a Sox fan.

I'm a Cubs fan, too.

:evilgrin:

... more and more.

It doesn't mean that it isn't going to happen to virtually everyone but the idea that "you tried your best so it's ok" just makes me want to gag. When one loses one should feel BAD and use that drive to try and excel further so that they don't have that BAD feeling again.

Losing should hurt and taking away that hurt is neutering our society.

Also, to the OP, the reason you exist in such a cushy culture (America) is because of your fore-bearers who took competition to a new level and scratched out this amazing place we live in where their descendants could hopefully continue on their fine tradition. They were wrong... but its still an impressive act they accomplished.

How so.

See "Akeelah and the Bee" for the up-side to competition.

Might not be entirely realistic, but it makes a decent case.

Someone, somewhere, has probably made a competitive version, but the real game has no winners.

which is where you seem to be drifting off.

As far as sins I'd imagine greed is where competition fits as you're describing it.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you because I don't get what you mean about when you say:

" If sports teams, or presidential candidates, or administrative assistants, or students just did the best they could possibly do, why would the idea of competition need to come into play?"

Why would people want to be recognized for doing their best? Why would sports teams want to know who is 'better' so those teams could 'do their best' against each other? Why would presidential candidates want to know who people liked better?

Because the answers are obvious, to get rewarded, to have 'fair/balanced' games, so the more popular one could have a better chance at winning the election.

I agree competition can be unhealthy if you are always thinking how you can out due the other person or how you can be the best, etc but I think most people aren't like that. I just don't see what you are getting at or how 'the idea of competition' could be removed from ever coming into play.

A strong competitor will motivate you to exceed what you believe to be your best. I've seen it happen in sports and in business - competition is a very good thing. How many "no-hitters" would get thrown if who won the game was immaterial? What would motivate a supplier to give you a good price if he didn't have to worry that the guy down the street might give you a better one?

Games have rules. The business world has ethics and in many cases is regulated by the law. Operating outside of these limits indicates a character flaw, not a problem with competition.

Please tell me where your planet is. It sounds like a great place.

Eliminating competition wouldn't change that - some people would always find a reason to cheat.

I've worked in the business world for almost 40 years and the vast majority of people I've met are honest and ethical. Many of those people are senior executives, up to and including CEO's.

If your opinion is based on personal experience with business people, then you have my sympathies - you must be having one awful career.

You posit a pretty utopian world where there is no competition (obviously no shortages or limited resources at all) then mock a response that suggests that there are rules to keep competition from becoming predatory--nice!

The reality is that there will always be competition as long as there are limited resources. If there is enough food for your child or mine, I'm not going to cooperate to the point where both starve. There are rules, and sure, they aren't always followed, many are rigged but the world is not in total anarchy either.

That competition can become predatory and counter-productive is obviously true, but that is not the same as saying all competition is negative. Knives can cut your fingers off, but they can be quite useful sometimes too. Aside from the inevitability of competition in a system with want/need, there are benefits for creatures within a social framework.

Claiming the best of humanity can always be accessed simply by everyone just willing it so is pretty unrealistic. It only takes one person to decide to compete and both are now competing, whether the "non-competitor" admits it or not.

everyone did their absolute best rather than trying to "beat" someone elses' absolute best.

it & do my best.

when it turns into competition, it becomes unpleasant.

Tennis, golf, bowling, Monopoly, Candyland, various card games, bidding on Ebay, playing the football pool in the office,...the list is long. There must be something there that you enjoy.

I found it very stimulating, but it's not for everyone

something faster or better a second or third time.
Or achieving a high score in a one player game.

The prosecutor would just accuse someone of a crime and the defendant would not feel obligated to put everyone out and contest the charges. You see, it would cause the prosecutor such worry if they had to prove their case. Worry is bad.

as oppossed to comparing it against someone else's best.

and I don't generally have a problem with that, but if society wants those groups to achieve towards their potential, then motivation is required and competition is a valid motivation.

We're lazy creatures and quite easily grow content with stagnation.

With everyone else, I cooperate.

That's why I've been self-employed since 1974. My challenge is always to do a better job than I did the last time I did something. Sometimes I succeed.

The bottom line is that we never do the very best we're capable of doing. We can always do better. Our very best competitor is looking at each of us in the mirror.

we're hardwired.

oppossed to an inborn one.

That is why they want to buy out T-Mobile. {Click}

Soon it will just be AT&T and Verizon and then they can set the market up any way they want to.

without baseball teams fighting for the playoffs. You see some incredible athletic feats when an outfielder realizes that if he drops this ball, his team could miss the playoffs. It's what pushes Kobe Bryant of the Lakers to spend hours overnight working on his shot after he had a bad game that day.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with competition when it pushes you to do better, to continually improve your skills, whatever they may be.

hours working on his shots? Just being the best you can possibly be should be reason enough.

Okay, I suppose most people need some external force (competition) to push them to be their best. I know it's the way most live, but I instinctively feel there's something wrong with it. It's one of humanities flaws that can be overcome by getting a set of blinders, ignoring the best that others can do, and doing the absolute best that you yourself can do.

It's nothing more than a state of mind.

using basketball as an example again, some players would be thrilled just to make it to the NBA. But even then, to make it to the NBA means you're better than a $h!t load of other players in college and high school. It means you've pushed yourself to continually make yourself better than the other kids also trying to make it to the NBA. If just doing the best you can still means that there are 200 kids better at basketball than you when it comes time for the NBA draft, you ain't getting drafted to the NBA.

For guys like Kobe, just making to the NBA still isn't good enough. it's being the BEST period. It's pushing yourself to be better than the other NBA players and since he is REALLY good, he's competing against the players of all time.

when viewed from a biological context.
Being "good enough" allows one to live with the least effort.
why put in extra time to become better?

I don't believe it's a flaw, it's a major function of biological life.

I remember the cake walk massacre of '89. Tragic.

So that their kids can learn in an environment free of the distractions of Social Darwinism. Many still have their kids in league sports - the difference being that these kids learn there are proper places and times to be competitive.

Children are savages and the solution to proper socialization and civilization is never going to be: dumping them off with a group of other children.

"So prove me wrong. If sports teams, or presidential candidates, or administrative assistants, or students just did the best they could possibly do, why would the idea of competition need to come into play?"

They all do the best job they can. The competition part comes in at why they do it. There is only one president at a time, so they're all doing the best they can to get that job. There's a single trophy to win at the end of each season, and each athlete does their best to attain the goal. Even students, who may or may not compete against each other, are at the very least competing against a certain objective standard(subjectively chosen of course, depending on who, when, where you are in time) to get a good grade.

"But hear this. I have held this belief since I was a child. I spent my life working at what I was good at and I've made a decent living. And never once did the concept of competition enter my mind. All I did was the best I could possibly do. And it had nothing at all to do with anyone else's best."

Were you ever promoted over someone else? Did you get money for what you did? Did they give you more money at some point?

Competition isn't some other, or alien thing. I don't see how you can separate it from life. It's built it.

"If the human species could only drop the concept of competition"

Your idea is competing with the concept of competition. It's not something you can consciously extricate from existence.

Or, devolving, since evolution has no direction.

Competing and Losing has taught me how to fail with dignity and respect,
assess my weaknesses, and come back with a better plan.
I've learned MORE from losing than I have from winning.
Winning is EASY,
losing with dignity and self-respect is more difficult.

I don't trust anybody who has never lost or failed.

The BIG lesson from losing is Goal Setting.
I am NOT responsible for the Outcome.
I AM responsible for giving my best.


"He who grieves well, lives well."

...but excess of it can be really, really bad.

And how much of my life can I never get back by actually responding to the OP? This sucks.

is a bad thing.

But at least by that point we'll be accustomed to failure so it won't sting so bad.

When I lost. I hated P.E. because the big six foot tall girls would hit me in the head with basketballs, deliberately trip me, or do other things to be a pain in the ass.


When I lost a contest: A spelling bee, or playing for chairs in orchestra.

I always felt like I could not speak up. I could not say anything that would change their minds. I felt powerless and I still do.

The orchestra director was not fair.
His daughter was always in one of the first four chairs in the first violins. That's the first two stands. She was not a very good violinist and the other kids knew it. When we played for chair positions every six weeks, I never was placed above fifth chair, because of the four kids that the teacher liked, and one of them was his daughter.

We would sit in a tiny practice room and play for chairs. We had eight kids in the first violin section. And then when he announced the order we were supposed to sit in, I would sit there with my fiddle in my lap and cry bitterly. And everyone ignored me. And I didn't care, I was beyond caring what they thought.

I spent four years mad at the orchestra director.

I've competed academically for decades. I went to two universities, one junior college for a vocational degree, and a private free-standing law school. I earned three degrees. There was usually somebody smarter than me, or at least in better health, who would beat me. I never had enough energy to satisfy these men who were wired on testosterone and probably blessed with an overactive thyroid. I felt like a failure because I was not smart enough to go to medical school.

Baby Boomers were so numerous, that the competition was horrendous. We were told to get mentors, to guide us in our careers. I never had a mentor. I had people holding me back, because they wouldn't like the competition if they taught me their business. I had people spreading lies about me to keep me back. I'm talking about educated people who should know better, but they are petty and mean -- lawyers and judges.

One of those petty judges who told lies about me when I was a court reporter is now the elected District Attorney of Harris County, Texas. Her name is Pat Lykos. When she was a judge she bitched at her staff. The DAs, the clerks, the court reporters, the bailiff, the process server, nobody was good enough to work for her. If the public knew what kind of drunken jerk she is, they would not have elected her.

And after I quit working at the courthouse, I had other temp jobs that were really sucky. I cried at some of those too from ridiculous demands. And I still don't give a shit what people think. I don't want them to do anything or give me phony concern. Most people are good at ignoring a crying woman at work, and that suits me just fine.

I think it's one of the reason union membership is down so much. It's also a reason we have such a lack of empathy. We see everyone else as opponents not as fellow humans.

You can't just see a showcase of up-and-coming talent, for instance -- everything's got to be a fucking contest.

a good thing and a bad thing. All in moderation...

In this country we see competition being uber alles, and it is extremely applied to every aspect of our lives.