COMPETITION

So lately the topic on my mind has been COMPETITION. It's come up a number of times in my thoughts and in things that I've heard lately to really make me want to sit down and hash this out. I really want to get something out there for the world to know:

I HATE COMPETITION. I hate it with the fury of a thousand bursting suns. I HATE IT. It's a big fat lie, in my opinion. The word "competition" is just a deceptive disguise for the true culprit mainly comprised of jealousy, covetousness, and bad-wishing on others.

Listen, I'm not talking about competition as in sports where the whole point is to win the game. But even in that instance, if you lose you shouldn't feel bad about yourself. Sports are supposed to be games, and games are supposed to be fun things you do because they are fun. If your whole self-worth depends on your performance in a game, that's terrible. Likewise, if you identify yourself with a team and that team loses and that causes you to feel any negative emotions, I would say you are falling into the spirit of competition that is unhealthy.

By definition, competition is rivalry. It is the struggle to be the “winner” over the “loser.” In ecology, it actually means “the struggle between individuals of the same or different species for food, space, light, etc, when these are inadequate to supply the needs of all.” In the medical field, competition means “the process by which the activity or presence of one substance interferes with or suppresses the activity of another substance with similar affinities, as of antigens.”

And that is exactly what I’m thinking about. If you label yourself as a competitive person, aren’t you really saying that you want something even if it means another individual goes without? Or sometimes it means you want what the other person has, or what the other person also wants, in a way that would make you have it more than them.

Competition results from a lack of self-worth. If you do not have a high enough opinion of yourself to be satisfied with who you are, you look to another person and think—I am going to try to get that. I want to have that more than they have it, so I will try to take “the prize,” or the place of possessing that thing.

Look, I understand that in our day and age, there is a tendency to think that being competitive is necessary for getting ahead in this world. People think that it’s all business, it’s not personal. You need to be competitive to really accomplish anything important. I think that’s a lie from the enemy to cause us to put boundaries between people. It breeds the thought: “You and I are separate. Only one of us can succeed at a time. We can’t BOTH be as successful as we want if we help each other and want the best for each other. There can only be one ‘top’.”

I guess there can only be one TOP EXECUTIVE in a company. But the ends don’t justify the means. You see the movies where people have to step on each other to get to the top. Then the main character realizes that it’s not worth being scum to get ahead, and settles for the happy life of “less.” If even Hollywood can recognize that squashing someone else isn’t worth losing integrity and if even Hollywood can admit that it’s actually self-respect that says “no” to lowered standards for success, you’d think we’d get it in our heads too. (think: Devil Wears Prada, Baby Boom, and countless TV movies)

But we deal with it on a much more intimate and sometimes what we consider mundane level. There can be a fine line between wanting to do well and wanting to be the best at something. It’s so easy to cross over to the dark side. I suppose it goes back to the question that seems to be the root of every heart issue: what’s the motive?

So if you consider yourself a “competitive” person, search your heart and make sure your motives are pure. I understand it can be hard to hold on to your self-worth—the self-worth that doesn’t depend on all the hoops you can jump through or your accomplishments, but the self-worth that is really just derived from what God sees in you: a perfect new creation that is irresistibly loveable.

Are you doing what you’re doing to be the best and therefore find yourself valuable? Or are you doing what you’re doing as an outflow of who you know you are and what you know is achievable because of your relationship with God and your already-existent, God-created, unconditional value.