Competition

I don't like competitions very much. I'm not a competitive person. Perhaps I was, and even "a natural" at that. Growing up in a competitive school environment, I never failed to attain the number 1 position in my class, except for two terms of what I considered "shameful failures." I even won all kinds of contests--painting, essay-writing, singing, dancing, debate, poetry recitations, and on and on and on.

But I got tired of this robotic way of achieving top honors with the goal of pleasing my parents (and perhaps myself). Success came as an expected course of events in my youth, that any little failure would make me feel like digging a hole in the ground. My self-esteem, as I discovered in later years, was largely built on my competitive abilities, on what I was able to DO, not so much on who I really WAS. How much did I truly know myself? Very little.

As I grow older, I've stopped competing. Of course I still have to compete when it comes to job searches. But that's a different matter. I started to hate competitive events or ocassions. They make me uneasy. If a friend of mine is being competitive and aggressive, I would immediately sense the tension and just let him or her get the limelight. I would shut myself off and ease out of the situation.

For me, life is not a zero sum game. And in each situation, there isn't only one winner.