Nature of Competition

I dislike competition.

I understand that competition is the basis for biological development. I understand that species that compete better will survive. I understand it is integral to what we are. I am in effect competing with all the people that might want my job. I have to be better than all of them to keep my job. Competition exists. I just dislike it.

I dislike it unless it's against something other than other people. Competing against my own previous standards. Competing against a task. As long as there isn't another person on the other side.

I dislike competition with people because someone wins, and someone loses. Again, I see that to grow in life it seems necessary to lose, but that doesn't make it better. If I am the one who wins... I feel bad because the other person is faced with not being "as good" as me. I feel bad when I lose too... because I wasn't "good enough" to win.

I don't understand people who enjoy competition because it seems to me that if they win, they are being inconsiderate of the people around them. If the lose and keep enjoying it, it seems like they don't understand what just happened.

Even a friendly game of foosball at work is something I'm starting to dislike because it's starting to feel like people involved care what happens. I can play and enjoy it normally because it doesn't matter. We play another game, and there's a different winner. We can compliment each other on the good shots or good stops. And no one seems to care who actually wins. But when people start to look dissappointed, or keep track of win rates, or just cheer when they win instead of just enjoying the company... I don't like it anymore.

I think my self-image is part of the reason I dislike competition so much. I seem to put more value into those contests than there actually is. The board game "Risk"... I won't play that game anymore. Where a game of foosball can take a few minutes and can go either way on a regular basis... Risk and games like it take hours. You set up, you plan, and your intelligence has a bearing on the game. So to me, Risk is a game where you get together with your friends and spend hours of deep thought to show an example of being smarter than your friend. To me it seems like a slap in the face. Either you find out you're dumber or smarter, and either way, someone has to lose, and it's this long drawn out process to get there. How does that help anyone? When I win, the victory feels hollow because I made another person face the idea that they aren't good enough. When I lose, I realize I'm not good enough. I won't play that game ever again.

So while I understand that competition is necessary in life, and that a person can become stronger by losing... I hate being the one to tell someone else that they lost. There's no pleasure in winning for me when the competition matters.

How can I go into a competition against another person knowing that the only outcomes can be bad? I hate competition.

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Now on a bit to the other side of it... homogeny. Schools are the best example I can think of here. Each student is competing with themselves to learn. But of course, the grades make for a way to compare students. But I'm not looking to go indepth on my thoughts about grades. I'm looking to get to Levels. Some schools separate students into low difficulty classes through a spectrum to the high difficulty classes. Kids are put into levels. And while a person after reading the previous part of my post might think I'm against levels because it's a form of competition, they'd be wrong. Grades can be kept to yourself. But the level of classes you're taking is pretty easy for people to find out. So it's easy for people to say "I'm in level 1 classes and you're only in level 4 classes... you must be stupid". There is the same sort of competitive standard.

And there are people in the world who think those levels should go away. But I am adamantly against that. When you're a teacher, you have to account for all of your students and their learning styles. And unfortunately, you tend to have to go at the pace of the slowest learner. If you keep a pace that the fastest learners can keep up with, the slow kids get left behind and you aren't doing your job. If you keep a slow pace, the fast learners will invariantly get bored, and very likely won't learn. You're still not doing your job. To do your job, you need all of the students to learn the lessons. As you may guess... this effort required increases dramatically when the students have such different learning abilities, to the point where to get rid of those levels would mean teachers would be far more likely to fail. Putting stupid kids in with smart kids just means the system won't work.

So in the case of schools, I think it's vital to label students as low level through high level learners. Without it, we're making the task of teaching close to impossible. And when did we stop admitting that some people are stupid? Sure, you feel bad for a stupid kid, but putting him into a class with smart kids is not going to make the situation better. Instead... put him in a room with other kids who learn like he does, and let the teacher do their job. They might not learn as much in total... but at least they'll learn. We can't treat students like a homogeny. While I would feel bad categorizing a kid as stupid... how else can we keep things moving? How else can make things good for everyone involved?

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Alright... I'm done putting my thoughts down about this one for now. I don't have a clue what good it will do, but I figured I'd try to get my head straight anyway.

Thinking versus Doing

"Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one's thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world."
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I think about that concept frequently and often for extended periods. It seems to define me. I don't know how well Goethe's quote applies to everyone else, but it fits me extremely well. I have hopes. I have intentions. I have goals. I think about these things and it turns into a day-dream about things I'd love to do or experience. But I don't do them or experience them.

I'm writing this post because I'm thinking about things I'd like to do that I'm not doing. I can be conscious of the fact that I'm not doing what I want to do and still find excuses to not do them. Does that mean it's not actually what I want? Or do I spend all that time day-dreaming and hoping for things I don't actually want? That doesn't make sense... but then why don't I just act on those thoughts? Goethe knew me well apparently. For some reason putting my thoughts into action is terribly difficult for me.

Talking to a woman I'm attracted to. Home improvement projects. Buying a new car. Taking a ski trip. Going shooting more often. Practicing karate. Getting back into shape with running. Writing software in my free time to try to sell it for extra cash. Writing fiction in my free time because I love writing (I think). Getting together with friends more often...

It's all stuff I think I want that I'm not actually doing. I'm sure there's more I should list, but I think you get the idea. Can you make a list like that? This is where I'm hoping I can be of some service to anyone who stumbles on my little blog. I'm hoping that maybe you'll think like I do, but that maybe you can be conscious of the situation and actually do something about it.

I'm writing this so I can try to think through in a clearer way what is going on with me. I think I want to act on my thoughts. I want to stop being afraid. I want to stop making excuses. Maybe putting this out there for anyone to see will help me. Maybe it'll help someone else too.

Good gravy my impulse to find negative sides is strong. As I wrote the previous paragraph I was thinking to myself about how I don't know where to start. When I get home after work I'm just going to settle down and catch up on TiVo'd shows. And why would reading someone else's thoughts on this help anyone to get over that hurdle? And the thing is... I believe the negative side. I believe I won't change. And I believe that anyone reading this isn't likely to change either... or at least not because of anything I've written.

So here I am pondering again the concept of acting on your own thoughts because I'm not strong enough to do anything about it.