My Opinion about Competing

Once, I had a heated discussion with one of my friends of whether one should be competitive or not. He believed that one should aspire to be THE BEST at whatever he is doing and smash all his competitors. I was on the other extreme where I believed that there is no point of competing because there are abundant opportunities for everyone in this world. None of us changed his mind, but our stubbornness has shaken a bit.

It wasn’t so far from this discussion that I was having a night run, and I thought of testing my maximum speed through a hundred meter sprint. I scored 19.6 km/h, or this is what my running calculator showed. When I was on the verge of quitting, some stranger entered the running track with his coach. He seemed professional and he was sprinting to his maximum speed. For some reason or another, I forgot about my pain and wanted to know if I could beat him. So, I ran against him and, proudly, I beat him. At the end of my run, my running calculator showed that I ran with a speed of 26.2 km/h which made my mind wondering about the discussion I have mentioned before.

I spent a while thinking about this topic, and I have reached a conclusion which I would be sharing with you. I remember once hearing Jim Rohn, the business guru, advising his listeners to strive to be at the top five percent of their industries. This is it. One should not strive to be the best, but one of them. Although it may seem similar to what my friend said, it is far apart from it. That is, although it means that you are competing with the ninety-five percent of the population, it means that five percent is still your allies. It means that you still have someone who would help, push, and motivates you when you get down.

Although competitions get the best out of us, it is really damaging for us to compete in every field. I remember when one of my friends missed training for a couple of days, and when I asked about him, he said “I was just resting … Anyway, we are not professionals, you know!” He is right. We are not professional athletes. Sometimes one should accept being just good, or even only amateur, in some fields, so we could be at the top of the games that matter the most for us.

At the end, as Socrates said, wisdom exists in the middle of extremes. Wisdom, in this issue, exists in being very selective about what you are going to compete in and in not forgetting to have others around us along our way.

If what I have said looks like common sense, it means that it is plausible. And if it just seems like crappy nonsense, you are welcomed to disagree with me in the comments.