Competition laid bare

As I read this piece it opened the floodgates of something that has been buzzing around - competition:

'I often try to imagine a world where we are not in competition with our fellow humans, but where we truly, madly, deeply celebrate when they actualize some part of their sacred purpose. 

Imagine that. A world where we get excited for each other when we achieve, where we do not see anothers' accomplishments as a reminder of things we have not yet actualized, but as living proof that it is possible for all of us. 

I love it when people accomplish something they have set out to do, when the phoenix rises from the ashes with actualization on its wings. Let’s invite each other higher, lets encourage each other to believe in our shared magnificence!'  - Jeff Brown 

Competition is something I’ve never really understood. Hubby on the other hand, does. Hmm...it isn't that I am not competitive...actually, now that I think about it, I am not sure what I don't really understand.  Maybe it is something I thought I'd cleared but haven't.

When my children were small, I did not want to be part of groups of mothers because of the competition about whose child was sicker/healthier, made bigger/smaller poohs, learnt to walk faster/slower or some such. In fact any type of gathering made me feel uncomfortable because there was always this element of competition underlying everything.  

When I insisted that our children go to a Waldorf school for their education, hubby was (still is) puzzled with the ethos of no competition. How can you go through life without being competitive? Competition is healthy – so we have been told over and over again.

 

From the olde worlde perspective, hubby is right - competition got you ahead in life. We were taught to be competitive from an early age. You see it in everyday life. How many adverts are competing for our attention? How often at school were we classified by our abilities to pass exams or what kind of degree we went on to get. Even something simple like board games are competitive.

Hubby plays to win, he dislikes losing – he is not a bad loser, but you can see it doesn’t sit well. He maintains that there is no point in playing unless you are 'in it to win it'.

I disagree – surely the goal is not as important as the journey to getting there. Where is/was the enjoyment of simply doing it because it made you happy or gave you pleasure. We mix pleasure and happiness with winning…but this does not give us true pleasure - it is a hollow victory. It fills the black hole within each of us for a short while, until we feel the pressing need to do something else that will scratch the itch. But do I really feel like this?

Maybe I am discomforted about competition rather than not understanding it. Deep down I wondered as we argued about this on Sunday. Surely these realities would not have been part of my life if I didn’t feel something within that was constantly bringing it to my notice.

I sat with this and the answers I received astounded me somewhat - it goes far deeper than the 'competition' I thought I'd cleared over the years. Without it, how would I have made it through this life? In everything I do, I want to excel so I keep at it – a sort of competition within me - with myself.

Which brings me to another thought - outer competition is blatantly obvious and in our face such as 'my team/boss/car/religion/government is better than yours'. But what about the subtle competition with-in ourselves that we are unaware of.

How many of us do the following:

*Look after family or friends to our detriment - competition to prove to ourselves that we are better at sacrificing.

*Think that our life is terrible – competition to show ourselves how much more we suffer.

*How ill we are – competition showing how much worse off we are.

*Feeling ‘holier than thou’ – ‘I am more spiritual than’ - to justify to ourselves why our beliefs are better than someone elses (quite a few embrace, including lightworkers). This one floored me somewhat – but once I’d allowed it to flow through me, I realised that beside the control aspect – I am competing with another part of me (i.e. someone else).

Or what about comparing ourselves to another or gossiping about another. We use all these methods as a form of competition. Even though the other person might not be aware of it physically, energetically they are. We connect to them energetically and this in effect drains them as we compete for their energy or they compete for ours. And so this competition for another's energy creates limitation - we don't believe that there is enough - thus we buy into lack.

I could go on with these examples but I hope I am explaining this properly. It is a very subtle social patterning that we are all dealing with, whether we know it or not. It is cloaked in control, duty, the 3d version of compassion, etc. – we don’t do anything without an underlying reason. If we wonder whether we have this competitiveness, the question needing to be asked is - what is the underlying reason we do/don't do something.

Is it wrong? No, I don’t believe so, as like our ego, it was needed in this world we created. Like the ego, we don’t want to kill it off. It helped us to get where we are today, as without it we would probably still be primeval sludge :-) I reminds me of the gladiators of old - who fought for survival within an arena. Our whole world is geared toward survival.

May we start moving towards true Ubuntu -‘I am what I am because of who we all are’ and ‘humanity to others’.

None of us have any idea in our human form, what our new world should look like. I do believe that we need to temper masculine competitiveness with feminine nurturance. In order for this to manifest it has to come from within us. 

How will this look in the future, I don't have even the foggiest of ideas. One step at a time, eh?

In conclusion, I do acknowledge that I am competitive - who isn't? I figure the reason I am not comfortable with it is that I don't like it. Suppose I gotta embrace it, love it, let it go and move on through.

Sheesh...I am faced with a pattern of mine so dramatically and forcefully mirrored by my dear hubby. Hoo boy...

 Nelson Mandela on Ubuntu