Competition - blessing or not?
Is the preoccupation with competition, with declaring wiwnners & losers - in sports, cooking, writing, even poetry - a blessing or a blight on the overall health of society?
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SethGreene531 · M
Well grounded, a select few use the race for the podium, as opportunity for personal growth, and perspective.
Meeting challenge as an opportunity for innovation and creativity. Stimulating self reflection, and reinvention, if necessary.
Within, are invaluable lessons in humility and honor, against life's inevitable defeats.
And knowing how to turn those who "best" us, into mentors, not opponents.
Ideally, when the only prize is setting a new personal best, everyone wins.
Sadly, the competive environment is about crowns, not badges of merit. Where life's worth is measured in a game of taking thrones. Mecurical, and toxic.
The ousted, face a devastating fall from grace. Years in wasted pursuit of validation, self worth, and a convoluted definition of what it is to be alive.
The winning "elites" soon face a new and formidable enemy: themselves.
In an unrelenting burden to eclipse each masterpiece, or pinacle, with another.
Unsustainable, their well of talent overdrawn; the winners find themselves in the rarefied air shared only by the Masters of the Renaissance, and God: who, as an encore, created man after arranging the firmament.
But little differentiates winners from losers.
The superficialities of titles, trophies, and their plastic reality; quickly fade to black. Where nothing can fill the vacuum of what is often -- hollow victory. Failing to occupy that space, within artist or athlete, intended to house the volume of their success.
The culmination of years of talent and sacrifice, finds their lives still without purpose or meaning.
I'd wager, a man can sooner rise from the ashes of defeat, than navigate the heights of great success.
Meeting challenge as an opportunity for innovation and creativity. Stimulating self reflection, and reinvention, if necessary.
Within, are invaluable lessons in humility and honor, against life's inevitable defeats.
And knowing how to turn those who "best" us, into mentors, not opponents.
Ideally, when the only prize is setting a new personal best, everyone wins.
Sadly, the competive environment is about crowns, not badges of merit. Where life's worth is measured in a game of taking thrones. Mecurical, and toxic.
The ousted, face a devastating fall from grace. Years in wasted pursuit of validation, self worth, and a convoluted definition of what it is to be alive.
The winning "elites" soon face a new and formidable enemy: themselves.
In an unrelenting burden to eclipse each masterpiece, or pinacle, with another.
Unsustainable, their well of talent overdrawn; the winners find themselves in the rarefied air shared only by the Masters of the Renaissance, and God: who, as an encore, created man after arranging the firmament.
But little differentiates winners from losers.
The superficialities of titles, trophies, and their plastic reality; quickly fade to black. Where nothing can fill the vacuum of what is often -- hollow victory. Failing to occupy that space, within artist or athlete, intended to house the volume of their success.
The culmination of years of talent and sacrifice, finds their lives still without purpose or meaning.
I'd wager, a man can sooner rise from the ashes of defeat, than navigate the heights of great success.
"If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same"
- Rudyard Kipling 'If '[/b]
And treat those two impostors just the same"
- Rudyard Kipling 'If '[/b]
Shadyglow · F
Robin Williams said it prompts us to be our best. Its a big thing in my state and community, sports is the biggest thing in the schools.
I don't know if it prompts everyone to be their best though. The "best" is very subjective I guess.
I don't know if it prompts everyone to be their best though. The "best" is very subjective I guess.
Umile · 41-45, F
Depends on how you take it, I guess.
To me, if it betters you then good. As long as you try to do better and understand that you did your best.
To some, there's a need to compare, it kind of breeds jealously and envy.
And to the few, it breaks them. A learning process.
We all can't be the best all of the time, but we can all try to be better.
To me, if it betters you then good. As long as you try to do better and understand that you did your best.
To some, there's a need to compare, it kind of breeds jealously and envy.
And to the few, it breaks them. A learning process.
We all can't be the best all of the time, but we can all try to be better.