Today, I'm going to try starting a blog post with an anecdote. Just to see if I can pull it off.
So, I like cycling. It makes me exercised and allows me to appreciate the sun and outside air. But I do NOT cycle fast. I am really, really slow. As with most things I do in life. So it always annoys me when faster people (read: everyone with legs over the age of four) overtake me.
I've learnt to deal with it since most people who cycle at the same time as me where actual cycling shorts and cycling shirts and proper helmets and things, so I figure they must be far more committed to the whole cycling thing than me. I've managed to hammer into my head the simple equation "latex equals fast," and if anyone over takes me wearing leatex, it no longer bothers me. And it usually minimises anxiety/inferiority complex content during my cycling escapades.
So, I was out cycling last Saturday. Being overtaken by millions of latex-wearing cyclist people of an incredibly wide range of ages; as usual. Thanks to my latex equation, I was happily pedalling along, virtually unaware of my lack of pace. Then, some NON-LATEX WEARING bastard, about my age, hurtles past my at comparatively twice the speed the sound. This, of course. led to a huge metaphorical kicking of my irrational male pride, and so I hurtled after him attempting to re-overtake him. It was only about ten minutes later (or four and a half minutes after he left my line of view) that I realised: hold on, what is the actual point of this? It affects my life in no way whatsoever if some flashy git is a faster cyclist than me, and I've just pushed my leg-muscles to far greater their usual capacity, in the full knowledge that they will punish me when I get home, even more than they usually do after a bike session.
And it got me thinking, why are people so competitive?
Competitiveness isn't an inherently bad thing. It pushes people to do the best they can, academically and professionally; and it leads to a hell of a lot of interesting multi-national festival things. But there does seem to be a hell of a lot of unnecessary competitiveness in our lives. Every day, we hear voices or see images that tell us to "Be more muscular than your friends! Be the skinniest girl in your school! Smell better than anyone else on the train! Appear affluent! Make people envy you!"
I know what it sounds like I'm going to say next- "commercialism! bragh!" But this process of making people compete unnecessarily is by no means a sin only advertisers are guilty of. Our whole society from education upwards seems to be based around not only making people want to be good, but making people want to be better than everyone else. When you were in primary school, the teacher would let the tidiest table go first. Your secondary school ran "gifted and talented clubs" and started sports teams that you always wanted to stand out and be a part of. I don't know how you're parents raised you; but it's likely they encouraged you throughout your years to be better than the next kid, to make everyone think you were cleverer and more athletic and more talented than everyone else. None of these are particularly bad on their own, but it all builds up and up until you are so ridden with the need to be better than your friends that you pick the socially inept and less intelligent to hang around with, to make yourself look good, and you find yourself envying your best friends every success.
Why isn't it enough to just be good at the things you are good at, and bad at the things you are bad at? This desperate need to compete we have set up in our society draws everyone to the same goals- which is neither realistic nor beneficial. Everyone is good at different things. Yes, we have all heard this sentiment in our junior years of school; but it's never enough. The teachers rarely act by that principle in any other situation, and outside of school, we are bombarded by images telling us to be pretty, to look clever, that to be normal is not enough- we must be elite. It's arguable that young children are not affected by this attitude in society the same way as the rest of us, but my experience is to the contrary. My sister is nine, and only recently she told me she thought she was fat and ugly. Needless to say, she is neither of those things.
I do it too. My subconscious is saturated in competitiveness as much as anyone else's. Whenever anyone, even someone I love very dearly, has a big success, there is always a part of me that is envious in the midst of my euphoria. "Why wasn't it me?" The dickhead inside of me says.
I personally feel we'd all have similar confessions, if we thought about it enough.
I don't know what the solution is- I may do a second post in which I attempt to find one. But hopefully I've at least established that there's a problem- we are being driven to desire achievements we don't need to achieve, and the empathy and love we so need in life are being compromised by envy and the drive to compete unnecessarily.
So, I like cycling. It makes me exercised and allows me to appreciate the sun and outside air. But I do NOT cycle fast. I am really, really slow. As with most things I do in life. So it always annoys me when faster people (read: everyone with legs over the age of four) overtake me.
I've learnt to deal with it since most people who cycle at the same time as me where actual cycling shorts and cycling shirts and proper helmets and things, so I figure they must be far more committed to the whole cycling thing than me. I've managed to hammer into my head the simple equation "latex equals fast," and if anyone over takes me wearing leatex, it no longer bothers me. And it usually minimises anxiety/inferiority complex content during my cycling escapades.
So, I was out cycling last Saturday. Being overtaken by millions of latex-wearing cyclist people of an incredibly wide range of ages; as usual. Thanks to my latex equation, I was happily pedalling along, virtually unaware of my lack of pace. Then, some NON-LATEX WEARING bastard, about my age, hurtles past my at comparatively twice the speed the sound. This, of course. led to a huge metaphorical kicking of my irrational male pride, and so I hurtled after him attempting to re-overtake him. It was only about ten minutes later (or four and a half minutes after he left my line of view) that I realised: hold on, what is the actual point of this? It affects my life in no way whatsoever if some flashy git is a faster cyclist than me, and I've just pushed my leg-muscles to far greater their usual capacity, in the full knowledge that they will punish me when I get home, even more than they usually do after a bike session.
And it got me thinking, why are people so competitive?
Competitiveness isn't an inherently bad thing. It pushes people to do the best they can, academically and professionally; and it leads to a hell of a lot of interesting multi-national festival things. But there does seem to be a hell of a lot of unnecessary competitiveness in our lives. Every day, we hear voices or see images that tell us to "Be more muscular than your friends! Be the skinniest girl in your school! Smell better than anyone else on the train! Appear affluent! Make people envy you!"
I know what it sounds like I'm going to say next- "commercialism! bragh!" But this process of making people compete unnecessarily is by no means a sin only advertisers are guilty of. Our whole society from education upwards seems to be based around not only making people want to be good, but making people want to be better than everyone else. When you were in primary school, the teacher would let the tidiest table go first. Your secondary school ran "gifted and talented clubs" and started sports teams that you always wanted to stand out and be a part of. I don't know how you're parents raised you; but it's likely they encouraged you throughout your years to be better than the next kid, to make everyone think you were cleverer and more athletic and more talented than everyone else. None of these are particularly bad on their own, but it all builds up and up until you are so ridden with the need to be better than your friends that you pick the socially inept and less intelligent to hang around with, to make yourself look good, and you find yourself envying your best friends every success.
Why isn't it enough to just be good at the things you are good at, and bad at the things you are bad at? This desperate need to compete we have set up in our society draws everyone to the same goals- which is neither realistic nor beneficial. Everyone is good at different things. Yes, we have all heard this sentiment in our junior years of school; but it's never enough. The teachers rarely act by that principle in any other situation, and outside of school, we are bombarded by images telling us to be pretty, to look clever, that to be normal is not enough- we must be elite. It's arguable that young children are not affected by this attitude in society the same way as the rest of us, but my experience is to the contrary. My sister is nine, and only recently she told me she thought she was fat and ugly. Needless to say, she is neither of those things.
I do it too. My subconscious is saturated in competitiveness as much as anyone else's. Whenever anyone, even someone I love very dearly, has a big success, there is always a part of me that is envious in the midst of my euphoria. "Why wasn't it me?" The dickhead inside of me says.
I personally feel we'd all have similar confessions, if we thought about it enough.
I don't know what the solution is- I may do a second post in which I attempt to find one. But hopefully I've at least established that there's a problem- we are being driven to desire achievements we don't need to achieve, and the empathy and love we so need in life are being compromised by envy and the drive to compete unnecessarily.
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