Competing with one another is instilled into us from childhood. It starts with a spartan running race or a fancy dress competition in school & voila! Fast-forward to a few years, in the game called Life, some of us still find comparing ourselves with our friends & peers, with a fierce competing feeling within our souls, & think of ourselves as failures when we lose. Some of us might not even attempt the challenges laid because of the fear of failure. I say this from my own experiences during my college years. (During those days, I was a Monica from Friends, who could not handle losing very well & could either turn me into a sore loser or a grumpy ‘I can’t do anything right!’ person). Few may think competing with someone is a way to encourage one to work harder. But along the way, we tend to forget that each one is running a completely different race that most probably started at different times. The so-called encouraging method could backfire & could lead to a dangerous path toward depression & self-doubt.
If competing for a result that means the same to you as it does to your competitor, under the same circumstances, find ways to make that competition a constructive one, enjoy it irrespective of the results & don’t quit. If you lose, get up, dust yourself & move on. Mind you, the parameter ’same circumstances’ is of utmost importance. Otherwise, there is no need to compete. Be happy with your peers’ achievements & add their success stories to the ‘source of inspiration’ vault of your brain. Why? Because we are humans & the bitterness arising from such meaningless competition could reduce your capability to be kind.