Smells like Competitive Spirit
A commercial for megavitamins. The character is getting ready for his morning run, clad in jogging suit w/ designer sneakers. Monitors pulse & blood pressure, while getting coffee ready, then heads out the door. The announcer's voice comes in here: "You've always been competitive..." "I've never been competitive", I reply, and reach for the remote to find a channel more compatible with my non-type-A "lifestyle"...
Just like there are certain foods and beverages that go down smoothly and others that upset your system, some ideas/ideologies are in their way nourishing and others toxic- or perhaps dyspeptic. The whole competitive mentality, of having to "win" all the time, is one which feels foreign to me, kinda gives me a psychic tummy-ache. If it were a sandwich, it'd soon be expelled from my body, through one orifice or another..
Don't get me wrong. Striving to be as good as you can at whatever it is you do, that is a most healthy thing. And of course you learn from those who've gone before you, hopefully build on what they've done, Exceed what they've done. But do it for love of the game, not just the self-aggrandizement of "being #1"- whether that game is golf or baseball or music or whatever. Feeling like you have to be #1 is so full of #2....
Anyway. Last night I watched part of an interview with Tiger Woods on 60 Minutes, and though he did talk about striving for excellence as well(he's about as excellent as it gets in his sport) he was telling Ed Bradley about his- competitive spirit: "If we were playing cards, I'd have to whip your butt!" Okay, this begs the question, which is really the heart of what I'm getting at here:
Why do you have to win ?
Again, it's GREAT to want to be good at something and to work toward that end. That's healthy. You may or may not reach your goals, but at least you'll get better at it than you were. But when getting good becomes a measure of your self-worth, it starts losing nutrients fast- and becomes downright unhealthy, something your refrigerator should rid itself of. That's when that 'I must win at all costs' psychosis emerges.
The problem is that we attach way too much to the results. Win or lose. Do or die. An appropriate cheer here would be the one used in "Meatballs", the summer-camp Bill Murray comedy where he plays a counselor getting his 'team' ready to compete agains another camp's counselors: It just doesn't matter! It just doesn't matter!
And it doesn't. Not really. Besides, there's always somebody out there who can kick your butt no matter how good you are. There's nothing wrong with competition as long as it's just in the spirit of the game. It's just when the ego gets in there, when it's a matter of Proving Oneself(and all that entails) , that it starts to stink.
Just like there are certain foods and beverages that go down smoothly and others that upset your system, some ideas/ideologies are in their way nourishing and others toxic- or perhaps dyspeptic. The whole competitive mentality, of having to "win" all the time, is one which feels foreign to me, kinda gives me a psychic tummy-ache. If it were a sandwich, it'd soon be expelled from my body, through one orifice or another..
Don't get me wrong. Striving to be as good as you can at whatever it is you do, that is a most healthy thing. And of course you learn from those who've gone before you, hopefully build on what they've done, Exceed what they've done. But do it for love of the game, not just the self-aggrandizement of "being #1"- whether that game is golf or baseball or music or whatever. Feeling like you have to be #1 is so full of #2....
Anyway. Last night I watched part of an interview with Tiger Woods on 60 Minutes, and though he did talk about striving for excellence as well(he's about as excellent as it gets in his sport) he was telling Ed Bradley about his- competitive spirit: "If we were playing cards, I'd have to whip your butt!" Okay, this begs the question, which is really the heart of what I'm getting at here:
Why do you have to win ?
Again, it's GREAT to want to be good at something and to work toward that end. That's healthy. You may or may not reach your goals, but at least you'll get better at it than you were. But when getting good becomes a measure of your self-worth, it starts losing nutrients fast- and becomes downright unhealthy, something your refrigerator should rid itself of. That's when that 'I must win at all costs' psychosis emerges.
The problem is that we attach way too much to the results. Win or lose. Do or die. An appropriate cheer here would be the one used in "Meatballs", the summer-camp Bill Murray comedy where he plays a counselor getting his 'team' ready to compete agains another camp's counselors: It just doesn't matter! It just doesn't matter!
And it doesn't. Not really. Besides, there's always somebody out there who can kick your butt no matter how good you are. There's nothing wrong with competition as long as it's just in the spirit of the game. It's just when the ego gets in there, when it's a matter of Proving Oneself(and all that entails) , that it starts to stink.
posted by Roger U Roundly at 8:58 PM
1 Comments:
Glad to see you posting again.
I've noticed in my travels that "A" type personalities are usually candidates for the "B" ark.
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