Healthy Competition

Why do we compete? I have some reasons. We compete to prove we can endure pain and finish challenges; to compare ourselves with others and to see where we stand or how we stand out in a crowd; to feel good about being classified as better than another person; to challenge ourselves to be better; to work harder toward our goals; and to create a barrier between ourselves and others. Some of these reasons I consider healthy, promoting growth and movement toward self-actualization, and others I term unhealthy, detrimental to cooperation, information sharing, and general support of those around us. Competition is genetic; it is the very essence behind the Darwinian mantra, “Survival of the fittest,” but who or what is “the fittest?” It is the person or being best suited to surviving, the one who has the qualities needed for other generations and who gets to pass on those longer fingers, specific thinking patterns, or immunity to disease. Evolution calls for competition at a core physiological level, but competition, while valuable, can undermine excellence in performance when focused on solely. Leave the competing to our chromosomes because win-lose situations are not the sole importance in competitive environments, performance is.
Alfie Kohn, the author of “No-Win Situations” agrees. Do you remember the first time you experienced competition? Kohn puts the quintessential party game, Musical Chairs, up for scrutiny and uses it as his main example of how children in the U.S. are taught about the nature of competition. What if, he asks, children were taught to share the chairs rather than fight for them? They would still compete for a seat, but their ability to get everyone in the game on the diminishing chairs would be a type of challenge that called for skilled performance rather than a winner-take-all outcome. In this country eliminating competition from social environments would be a revolutionary movement, for as Kohn exhibits, competition is engrained in to our social world. Elite levels of all sports and games capture enormous audiences over media airwaves weekly and even daily. Kohn, who has extensively researched the act and mindset of competing, has published works citing, “competition undermines self-esteem, poisons relationships, and holds us back from doing our best” (qtd. In Rottenberg and Winchell 50). Indeed, our nation will go on continuing to worship the gods of NFL, MLB, NHL, and NBA, but what if we introduced alternative thinking patterns of cooperation, camaraderie, sportsmanship, and honesty into the liturgy? Attendants to Sunday football Mass would meditate on the skill of the opponent and the sportsmanship of the players rather than the ending score.
I keep an empty champagne bottle on my work desk. The bottle was decorated by a friend after my crew team raced in a regional regatta and took first place. After toasting and drinking to my win, I took the special bottle home and hung my medals from the season around it as a type of homage to the great season I had. My champagne totem sits on my desk at work and reminds me of the 5AM practice times, cold water, and relentless rowing machine tests we took before that race, all in the name of excellence. My team proved our hard work paid off and we were fierce competitors. We competed and were more fulfilled from the experience. Just the act of racing was enough, but the win was our Maraschino Cherry on top of our season’s Sundaes. After that weekend of success I brought my totem into work to show my coworkers who had all heard about my intense practice schedule and were interested to know how the race turned out. As time passed and work days turned into work months and years, a year has gone by since winning and I still feel prideful when I look at my totem, but more importantly, I find it to be a gentle reminder that competition is more than a score. One of my favorite actors, Michael Cain, once said, “The rehearsal is the work. The performance is the relaxation.” Having my crew medals on my desk reminds me to keep competition in my work environment focused on the greater good of the company, and this can be difficult, considering I share an office with a very intelligent and highly competitive co-worker, who also happens to be a close friend. Having the chance to enjoy one’s work space to the point that it feels I am spending time with a friend as well as earning a living and excelling at my job is a wonderful feeling and I realize the invaluable situation I am in, especially during a time when some of my friends cannot find work. However, how should one react when hearing a co-worker is receiving a raise or business perks? This becomes a lesson in selfless and genuine approval for your friend regarding the benefits they have received when an alternative way of thinking that could include estimating numbers and comparing benefits is looming in the back of one’s mind; however, said coworker is one’s friend and the right thing to do is to be happy for them and keep your mind on your own matters at work.
Call me utopian, but I do not find joy in focusing on the score. The old adage about how one plays the game rings true, especially when looking at statistics from one particular study known as the West Point Fair Play Project, which turned the intramural sports program at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on its head. In an article written by Lawrence Butler, a main administrator in the study, he states that he believes “participation in competitive sports is neither inherently positive nor negative for development of character. What DOES matter is how the sports program is conducted” (32). The West Point study, which included over 3000 students (75% of the student body); applied standards from the Canadian Commission for Fair Play to the school’s intramural sports program. Fair Play elements include honesty, respect for all team members, respect for opponents, and respect for the officials. Respect for opponents, Butler specifies, stems from awareness that an opponent is a necessary partner in sport, to whom one is bound by companionship in sport (32). This way of thinking can be transferred to other settings, like the previously mentioned workplace. When our competitor’s (or associate’s) capabilities are recognized and honored, skills are recognized and competition becomes constructive in work environments to promote personal growth or excellence in one’s field. Butler reported students acting as officials in the intramural games felt empowered by the fair play point system rather than feeling pressured from the athletes and, although they were often challenged by the intricacies of the rules of the game, they had no difficulty recognizing when players demonstrated a lack of respect. By factoring behavior-coded scoring into a game, a team competing in this system was able to advance to the playoffs without the best win-loss record. In other words, the normal zero-sum points system did not apply. Butler and his collegues believe this model is an important example for all who believe competitive sports have the potential to promote positive character traits in students.
We live in a society where long work weeks are the norm and economic gain is the goal. Consumerism and capitalism are driven by competition. Not only physiologically, but socially we are encouraged to compete with our peers. WordPress.com is a site that provides blogging services for anyone who would like to operate and compose their own blog site. It is a free service that millions use worldwide, upon landing at their home page; WordPress will offer you to click on a link to see, “Who is top author?” Similarly, Facebook applications offer those reading an article in the NY Times or viewing a web site to, “Be the first of your friends to ‘Like’ this,” as if by showing those in your network that you have been the first to spot an article or web page, they might find your more interesting, than they did a minute ago when you posted you laundry was finished. Being the first to do something matters, or does it?
A blogging correspondent for politicsdaily.com, Delia Lloyd of London, writes about an experience competitive parents might feel when they are used to their children coming in as top-rankers in the classroom. After her son entered a recitation contest at school as the defending champion and ended up coming in second to a peer who out-performed him, she had to deal with personal frustration. Lloyd recounts that she found herself wondering why her son wasn’t more focused before his performance and was surprised to realize how much more she enjoyed the remainder of the evening after his turn to recite was over. Lloyd’s personal enlightenment of the evening hit her as she realized her son was comfortable with his second place ranking and her self-proclaimed competitor attitude had not been transferred onto her child. In fact, he had taught her a specific lesson that day with his ability to be comfortable in the second place slot. “He knows,” she says, “[that] somehow that if he doesn’t win this time, he’ll win next time. It’s precisely that self-confidence that I so admire in him … and so lack in myself.” Lloyd sees happiness in her son stemming from his ability to catch a win in the next competition. He is happy in the act of and not so focused on the outcome. What if our professional athletes were to adopt this mindset and the U.S. audience was more concerned with sportsmanship and skill excellence? In an article titled, “Just Evaluation Systems in Competitive Sports,” the authors, Hager and Torres, state, “excellence is inseparable from the excellence of the opponent” (28). The West Point study found both participants and administrators learned that to make a positive in on behavior during competitive activities, it is essential to address how we treat each other and look at where our motives stem from. What would happen if we actively applied this approach to the workplace, our leisure sports, or classrooms? Our society would back away from the zero-sum evaluation approach. Hager and Torres agree we should equip teachers and administrators with more “sophisticated evaluation system[s]” (30). Competition in a zero sum system segregates people and does not promote support; it focuses on the black and white ideas of “win” and loss.” Competing in this type of environment can breed suspicion, inhibiting peers from recognizing each participants’ excellence in the act of competing while focusing on the result rather than the work that leads to that specific outcome. Considering the pace of our daily lives, we have to make the conscious decision to focus on our competitor’s skill when going up against others for pay raises, trophies, championships, or grades. By adopting this thinking pattern, I have found insight and appreciation for my own contribution to whichever game is in progress. Our competitors act as mirrors and their work, like yours, deserves value and respect. When we decide to apply sportsmanship to the sports we play life becomes a whole lot more interesting and when my mind pauses to make comparisons between myself and coworkers, I take a look at my crew team totem and realize it was not ruthless competition that got us to the first place title, but a focus on the practice and skills of each individual in the boat.

After The Big Race

My Grandmother’s Closet

My grandmother, who recently had her right knee replaced, is going on 80 and doesn’t miss a beat.  This goes for dressing as well. Her closet was inspiring to me as many women her age poo-poo dressing with care, exchanging physical aesthetics for comfort.  If there’s one thing she taught me as a young girl it was to dress the part you want to play.

I Used to Never Cry

I used to never cry

even when fate allowed

now my tear supply is plenty

and they stream my face aloud.

Codependency

I wake up in a cluttered bedroom that smells damp and musty (to be kind) and am overwhelmed by a sense of urgency in the air, wishing I was armed with the incense sticks I keep at home . . . lighting one makes me feel more present.  The scent initiates deep breathing while the white curls, dancing in the space around me, usually affect observational pause.

While waking up I notice my thoughts will touch periodically on the difference between the frequencies of love and those of fear.  My all-time favorite artist had mentions these two types of wavelengths on her last album.  Ive received an insider’s tip she is singing that evening at a local bar in my hometown; the type of performance I would normally postpone a trip to my parent’s.  Instead; however, I am am waking up in a cluttered room that used to be the bedroom of my formative years, well, middle school through high school anyway.

The urgency is constant and feels like a fear vibration, I decide.  The smell continues to bother me.  I go upstairs to join my parents for morning coffee and Credence Clearwater Revival, the band playing on the satellite rock and roll station.  Our virtual DJ. provides a constant soundtrack to my parent’s daily proceedings and usually plays at a level over which my speaking voice is not easily heard.  This makes it necessary to speak up or yell when wishing to engage others.

As an only child to a codependent couple, staying autonomous is a challenge.  Issues from both parties fly through the air constantly, seemingly with Velcro strips attached, waiting to latch onto anyone who will step into their erratic flight pattern.  These swirling devils, which permeate the air around us during my visit, are exhausting to wade through, and I feel my whole presence start to go numb.  I realize this is a normal feeling to pair with morning coffee, here, in this house, and suddenly I am glad for the sunshine outside.  At least Mother Nature is offering a partial remedy.

We make our way through coffee and rock and roll in the living room where morning easily turns to afternoon.  In this house hours are not seized, time is not honored as fleeting and something of value.  At one point during the day my dad gives me a Walkie Talkie radio, which I find a relief in.  He is, of course, the other user, and its presence in my pocket seems to quell the constant yelling of my name.  I figure this way I can at least speak in a normal tone rather than yelling from various rooms in the house over classic rock music.

The world I have carved for myself in another city is completely forgotten and unacknowledged here.  I cannot wait to get back to it, for in this house all forward movement is stalled and laid to the wayside. The odor of fear permeates and wading through issues takes up more time than I can afford.

Letter to the Editor

As I look to all I am and all I strive to be, I realize both my hope for the future and belief in my endeavors can not be passed to another as water passes via osmosis.  The other must believe in me wholly of their own desire.  Belief is a mindset and belief in another requires compassion, hunger, flexibility, and self worth.

Consolation can be found in Theory of Mind (ToM)

ToM is the ability to attribute mental states—beliefs, intents, desires, pretending, knowledge, etc.—to oneself and others and to understand that others have beliefs, desires and intentions that are different from one’s own

Wikipedia reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind