Competition

Faced with the idea of competition today. Competition is a fuel to the common man – enabling so many to reach a higher potential. This is not the case for me and is in fact, quite the opposite. In the face of competition, I am overcome with the feeling of defeat and incompetence. The combination can be completely fatal. If I am presented with a challenge, I am chomping at the proverbial bit to succeed. However, if I am one of two people presented with the same challenge, I may “chomp” but it’s a different kind. My drive to succeed in that case stems from a pressure, a threat of failure. When the two contenders in the ring are me versus me, I am driven not by the threat of failure but by the inkling, the taste of success. Only when it is me against, for lack of a better opponent, you, do I find myself considering throwing in the towel before the match even gets fired up. Worse yet, if there is no real “finish line” how is the competition decided? If you believe you have won, have you? If you call yourself a winner, or anything else for that matter, have you indeed become one? This applies everywhere. If I want to be a writer, if I call myself a writer, or a friend, or an individual even, am I one?



We cannot wait for validation from another, so yes; we must simply be what we believe ourselves to be. Any other way would be some manifestation of hell; to spend forever wondering if we are what we wish we were; what we think we are, or could be. Our perception of heaven and hell (or at least the general perception of the two) is that they are defined and juxtaposed against each other. Maybe this is not the case. Maybe heaven and hell are both internal and eternal. Maybe our souls never actually go anywhere but if we lived where, they find peace and if not, they are forever in the turmoil that I am talking about. To forever wonder if I am what I think I am, there could be no worse fate!