Do You Really Want to Be Competitive?

If life is a competition, then we need to do whatever is necessary to get ahead. We need to manipulate people, using their insecurities to fulfil our desires. We need to choose friends that can benefit us and disregard people who are going nowhere. We need to keep secrets so that we can have an advantage over others. We need to blow out as many peoples candles as we can, so that our candle is the only one that is noticed. We need to learn the right way to speak, and act, so that we can have an image and a reputation that is helpful to us. We need to sacrifice our time, our health and our relationships in order to gain money, status and power. We need to live in fear and psychological isolation, trusting no one but ourselves.

If life isn’t a competition, then it’s not necessary to seek an advantage. So we don’t need to manipulate, because we can moderate our desires. We have no need to discriminate between potential friends, we can simply choose those whose company we enjoy. We can freely share our knowledge and wisdom so that anyone can benefit from what we have learned. We can help people to light their candles if they are finding it difficult. We can speak and act freely, without worrying about our reputation. We can sacrifice money, status and power for our relationships, health and hobbies. We can be open to the world, treating people with love indiscriminately, because we have no reason to fear being used.

So choosing how we want to live our life, what values we hold and which forces drive us comes down to one simple question. Would we be happier living in a world of competition or a world of benevolence?