Is life a competition?

What? No way, I want to live a life according to my value systems and capacity, I want to be free.

“Life is not a competition.”

What is competition?

A competition is a race where people, belonging to some common parameter, perform a specific task; their results are compared and are ranked as per their performance. The common parameter can be age group, height, location, gender, designation, salary, educational background, etc.

It is the activity or condition of striving to gain or win something by defeating or establishing superiority over others. 

Do I like being in a competition?

Yes, I love it because I want to win over others, I feel so happy when I get the 1st prize.

Is competition necessary?

Yes, competition is required for various reasons:

To bring out the talents in every individual 

To encourage people 

To let go the fear in people like stage fear, shyness, etc. 

To be bold, to learn presentation skills, team spirit, etc.

What is its main intention in today’s world?

The main purpose of a competition is to find the best among many.

Say, your current profit is 75% and considering your capacity, resources, funds and time, you set the target for the next year as 85%. By the year end, you achieve 87%. But your competitor has made 92% profit, now are you happy?

No, I am not happy because someone has achieved more than me.

So where lies your happiness? In improving yourself or winning over others?

Both or in fact, its ok even if I don’t improve but I should be first. Say, as per above example, had I achieved 80%, but if my competitor had made 79%, I would be very happy because I won.

In spite of me knowing that I am capable of achieving more (more than 80%), being content with what I achieved just because all my competitors have achieved less than me, does it sound good?

Ignore big companies, if we take an example of kids in a drawing competition, we parents want our kids to get 1st prize, doesn’t matter if they have improved or not. That’s how the world works today.

Practically where does competition exist?

Competition exists everywhere starting from competitions in schools like writing, story-telling, running race, fancy dress, various games and sports and educational contests. Apart from these, there are competitions in very subtle forms like:

Who earns more in a family?

Which kid is more extrovert and excellent in academic and extra-curricular activities?

Who demands more respect at home, mother/ father/ mother in-law/ father in-law/ wife/ husband? 

Who cooks better, mother in-law/ daughter in-law?

Who manages well in a corporate world? 

Who gets the first chance to grab an offer?

Whom does a child love more? Mother/ father?

Which daughter in-law is more socially skilled? And lots more.

The world actually needs competitions for the below.

Who behaves very well in a class/school?

Who is the most helping student in a class/school? 

Who is the most sincere and honest student in a class/school?

Which employee is the best, in terms of, people management and work culture? 

Which CEO/ CFO/ director/ Manager is the best in managing self, people and work? And many more.

How does competition affect people? Is it for good? What are it’s side effects?

Anything done with a good intention, in the right way, with respect to the right people at the right time is mostly right. In a competition, the results of a specific deed are compared and graded accordingly. The basis of any competition is a common factor, but we really need to think, is this common factor means really same in each and every individual? Can any 2 individual be the same in their background? For example:

1. All kids of class 1 have a fancy dress competition in school. Now all interested children are asked to participate. Here, the common factor is class 1. But are all children of class 1 the same in their attitude, strengths, weaknesses, likes and dislikes?

2. At a senior education level, there is competition in academic performance. Again are the intellect, grasping and understanding capacity, interest and practical application of knowledge of every student the same?

3. In a corporate world, there is competition on who grows fast up the ladder, in terms of designation and salary. Are people’s strengths and weaknesses the same?

4. Irrespective of a kid or adult, irrespective of the work place or house, is the background of any two individuals the same?

There is a strong belief, “Life is a race, life is a competition, win over it”. Is this true? Who created this competition in life? Life is never a competition, it is a beautiful journey. It is we, who introduce competition and make it miserable.

The main objective of any competition is only and only to encourage and help improve oneself with respect to one’s own previous standard of perfection. Never ever compare with people and always want to win over them. Our happiness lies in continuous improvement of the self and not on winning over others.

Hence we need to look at a competition only from one perspective and that is THE SELF. Never compare one’s performance with the other and try to compete with them. We need to set our own targets, keep working only on the self and find ways to improve ourselves gradually. If other people are to be looked upon, then it should only be for inspiration or from a learning perspective. For example:

1. We have exams in schools and colleges. Say in the first exam, I scored 75%. There are many who scored above me. I can approach this in 2 ways:

a) Now I start comparing me with others. Naturally, I will rely on other people’s advice and suggestions on ways to study effectively and improve academically. Now, not all people will be honest in their opinions. This can be very well understood from their way of helping us. Then, we start thinking of ways to learn well and also suppressing the other. If I am the child of an influential parent (people in politics/ famous talented person/ etc), I will find ways of pulling down others through illegal means, like, causing pain/ fear to others before the exam, stealing papers, leaking out question papers and many more. In the next exam, I may score 95% or even more, but do I truly deserve it? Can I say that I have the knowledge equivalent to my score? In future, it is the knowledge which helps us and not the score. Moreover, as I keep facing problems, I will start feeling jealous about others, I will be unhappy on their success; in turn will provoke me to act negatively against them, I may compromise on my own value systems in order to achieve success. Is this competition worth it? Is this good for me?

b) Now I just check with myself, as to, what was my goal and how much have I scored? What was missing in me? If I was distracted from studies, what caused it? And what do I need to do, to perform better? I start working harder and find ways to remove all distractions like TV, going to parties, reading story books all the time, playing games, internet browsing, etc. I get new ideas like jotting down the main points, analyzing in detail, correlate the content with something relevant, drawing- pictorial representation, etc. Then, I get a few suggestions from others on how they study but I don’t rely on it completely. This way, I grow by knowledge and I also share my study methods with others for their benefit. This will create a very healthy atmosphere for oneself and others. The next time whatever I score, I will be happy that I truly deserved it, be it 90% or 95%. This approach also keeps my friendship strong and allows me to be free within, as I don’t have to compete with others. As I share my knowledge with others, I get to learn new concepts which I was unaware of. I become a selfless and academically strong person overall.

Now, which approach do we choose?

In competitions w.r.t sports events like running/ swimming/hurdles/ etc, we are taught only to concentrate on our own target, on the self and never to look at others. “Do the best of your ability. Play it in the right spirit, it is only a game.” The moment we see others, we lose concentration on ourselves first and we lose. When we see who is in front/ behind us, we are filled with fear and insecurity, a very important reason for one’s failure.

Competition is only a means of self improvement and this can be done by:

1. Set our own target, considering our capacity

2. Work sincerely towards the goal

3. Concentrate on our performance

4. Compare our result with the target we have set for ourselves

5. Analyze our strengths/ weaknesses and improve ourselves continuously

When kids return home from their school exams, we, as parents, generally inquire on their performance. The next question would be, “How did others perform?” Does it mean that your kids performance is dependent on others?

When their results are out, if the marks are not that good, we need to check on what was missing, ways to improve and work on them. Instead, we look at their friend’s results and if it happens to be the same, we ignore and feel “its ok, the question paper has been tough for all”. By doing so, we are ignoring to take efforts to improve and thereby, weakening them. If their friends have excelled, we compare with them and find faults.

Always encourage children to do their best in all they do, learn from others and improve on the self continuously. Never ever compare with others and compete, it only reduces our efficiency.

At a spiritual level:

To understand this at a deeper level, we all know that we are all pure souls (the atma), and not our body/ name/ designation/ many such external parameters. We, the souls have taken a costume, in the form of a body. This soul has a lot of in-built characteristics (features) and karma which is hidden to the external world. Karma is the result of a person’s actions, the law of karma says “If I do something good (in the present or previous births), I will experience goodness. If I do something bad (in the present or previous births), I will face bad situations in future”. Every birth of any living being, is only a result of one’s own karma. No one in this world knows the past karma of any soul. No 2 souls have the same karma. Hence the basic parameters of any 2 individuals can never be the same, so having understood this, does it make sense to compete with people?

Many times, we see a kid behaving in a way, which is completely irrelevant with the associated family. We wonder as to why it is so? When it is in a good aspect, we accept and are proud of it. But if it does not match our definition of right, we try to change it in all possible ways, if it doesn’t; we go to astrologers and many such people for help.

For example:

In a pure non-vegetarian family, there can be a kid who just cannot accept non-veg foods. He may even hate the taste of an egg. Why so? Eventually as he grows up, he may continue to be a vegetarian or may change.

At times, a student may not be a hard worker, he may be irregular in class, he may not show much interest in studies, but he may be a 1st ranker.

There are people who work extremely hard, show great interest, analyze and try to improve themselves periodically, yet, may not be so successful in their work. Why is it so?

Every soul has its own journey of ups and downs and this is a hidden factor.

Having said this, one cannot blame one’s own past karma for one’s problems in life and stay quiet. All of us have both good and bad karmic accounts. Any problem has to be faced in some way or the other.

If we compare with others, create fear, hatred and jealousy for others, then, we are again creating more bad karmas which will in turn create bigger problems for us in future. When we use negative means to solve a problem like anger, hatred, jealousy, cheating, etc, work or the problem may be solved very quickly, we may see quick results, but the karma that is being created will have huge effects on us later in life. At that point of time, it would be irrelevant for us to question as to why such bad incidents are happening in life. When we face a problem, we need to remain stable and try to solve it by all positive means.

There is a saying, “We will never get those that makes us feel unhappy”, which means, if we are unhappy over other’s success or happiness, then success/ happiness will never knock our doors. If you don’t believe this, you can very well experiment and see for yourself, but be careful of the karmas being created.

There is another saying, “The more we help others to become successful, the happier and successful we will be”, this can be experimented by all. 

“Life is a beautiful journey of many ups and downs, let us enjoy the ups and convert the downs to ups with a positive mindset”.

Thank you!!!