Competition it's said can mold a worthy adversary out of the meek! At least that's a loose translation of something I overheard a coach exclaim once a long time ago. Interesting when you really think about it isn't it? Is there really a healthy sense of competition where the influential game of life is concerned? Ah, that last line even indicates much of our social behavior towards daily life in many ways don't you think?

It can be a game in many ways can't it? Or at least it can be thought of as such given the complexities involved in just getting out of bed in the morning! Always trying to beat the odds, always trying to beat out a fellow worker to that raise, to that advancement in a better position, to beat out bad health with good health, the similes never seem to end! Think however on how this is affecting not only our behavior towards how we think of and treat others in our lives but also to how we really do think of and affect ourselves. Yes, a sense of competitiveness in life can be a healthy thing. It can drive us to exceed what we believe are our limitations. It can help us to move ourselves forward when we think there are no more roads for us to move along. It can be a motivator akin to no other. It can also sometimes go way too far...

Many years ago when I was a more avid motorcycle rider, I remember attending the yearly excursion to the races where we always traveled and during the yearly walk through while looking at all of the other machines, I noticed that one had a neatly brushed saying on it's rear travel trunk. I can still recall it vividly given its odd sense of veracity. It said:

"He Who Dies with the Most Toys Wins!"

I never lost the memory of my reaction to that nor of the underlying meaning that was derived out of this to the fabric of life.

Could life really be considered a contest of toy gathering and just what were all of those toys?

Another famous common talk angle that we often hear is that people never really outgrow their desires for more toys in their lives! Think about that for a moment to let the thought sink in a bit, then try to move your mind laterally into the avenue of questioning; "Just when does life become an unhealthy contest if it does so in your life?"

In the past I have spoken to great extent on the subject of "be-ing" versus "attending" your life and how there is a very real difference between these two alterable extremes.

When a person attends the functions of life, it can be like attending a wedding ceremony and yet never participating in any of the celebration. Oh yes, your there, your listening, and you are taking in, to at least a minor degree, what is going on, but just how much are you including yourself in the experience?

When however a person engages the experience of "be-ing" it also includes the experience of attending but the entire wealth of the articulations involved in eating, dancing, applauding, smiling, crying, and on and on are also involved and make it a much more filling lifetime meal for the spirit! You get the point here!

Now, another factor that is deeply involved in just about everything we tend to do along the path of life, and that some dig into much more than others, does not always benefit us in the end. This is when much in our lives becomes a pathway to a sense of both healthy and a very real expression of an unhealthy competition to everyday life. The question that eventually comes up is; when is too much of a healthy thing, now an unhealthy thing?

Usually most of the answers to this last bit involves to a great degree some real destruction of what was otherwise a healthy relationship in your life. The relationship isn't always a focus into others here by the way. Sometimes those more destructive effects are those that are self-inflicted through this extremist competitive mindset and where society-at-large is concerned, we now can witness it everywhere!

It's a difficult thing to not see the unhealthy effects of gross competitiveness on daily life. You doubt this? Think if you will on the economic effects that are whittling away at your wallet or pocketbook. Think of the political effects of an unhealthy sense of competition between lawmakers of all parties and try to justify a benign opinion of the effectiveness of competition when it obviously goes way too far and stops any solution from making its way to the top of the bog-like swamp that is the capitol of just about any nation nowadays.

Think if you will on the effects of an unhealthy competitive sense of intimacy with someone else where intimacy itself suddenly becomes grossly blown out of proportion and appears to be some goal to be achieved, instead of a living experience to be shared with another and with oneself!

Lets not also forget the vast and far-reaching effects of an unhealthy sense of competition when it alters the advancement and daily functioning of the family unit and the younger one's in our midst when this everyday race to beat out everyone else among us becomes the goal itself instead of there being a wider and wiser living goal of learning to become increasingly aware of ourselves in our relationships with ourselves and with others in our lives? How about the gross effects of the overblown competitions into and amongst the many worldwide religious establishments and those effects onto the billions of followers, onto nations, and people all over the world?

Is this starting to unfold a bit as we go on...?

Now, in no way am I attempting to assert the ideal that all of competition is entirely a bad thing for this is farthest from the subject at hand in anything I've opened for thought!

What it does bring up for further thought is the idea that sometimes we all tend to go too far with what is otherwise a good and healthy interaction between people and societies and economies and even amongst religious and spiritual ideals of thought.

Sometimes everything in life isn't merely a contest to get over, to get more, to get the most, to get the better over on someone else, on some other society, or some other people, or to some other way of being...

Sometimes when competition becomes styled as the first and foremost follicle into the hairline of our lives, we begin to lose the appearance and the effect it can have on us in the long run.

Think of the people who have lost so much yet still believe themselves to be gaining so much...

Think of the effects that could be achieved if worldly influential people gained a healthier mindset of their decisions if they weren't firstly concerned with beating their "always present" opponent across whatever aisle of their focus of attention and instead put the real focus of their responsibilities ahead of their need to beat someone or something else!

Yes economies still cycle in the world of need and want, and marketing isn't just a word applied by the businessmen of the world.

Sometimes the most critical and influential marketing that any of us can be affected by, is that marketing we do with our own sense of ourselves.

Does any of this really matter?

You better believe that it does! Just take another good and clear look around you!

Think about it...

As Always,

WD Allan

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