Life is not a competition. Unlike a game of basketball we don´t start life knowing what we are trying to achieve. This might sound terrifying. What do you mean my purpose isn’t clear from day one? But think about it, we don’t pop out of our mother’s womb with a roadmap to what we need to achieve for the next ninety-odd years of living. Instead we are built with the raw tools required to discover what we can make of our lives. In this way life is less like a game and more like a work of art. Part of the joy of living is getting to define just what kind of awesome you want to add to the world. Imagine if we didn’t get to choose where we were headed, that wouldn’t be as much fun, now would it?
Many would argue life does have a set of rules, or a moral code. Don’t steal your best friend’s man, no matter how fine he is. Don’t kill your neighbors who like to party at 3 a.m. on a Tuesday. Don’t gossip about Cindy’s deviated septum surgery. However, this code, while applicable most of the time, isn’t set in stone. Moral guides are subject to adapt or change based on the context of the situation. Take, for example, lying. Most people would argue lying is a bad thing, and that we should all be truthful. However, if a dangerous person demanded your home address, would it be wrong if you lied, giving them a false address to protect yourself? In this way many of the moral codes we rely on are not rules, but rather guides to living a more righteous life.
Much like our moral code, our opposition in life is often contextual. As a child you might feel like your competition is your annoying brother or sister. As a teenager it might be a student from a different clique. As an adult it might be a coworker who’s up for the same promotion. But it’s not that simple, now is it? You might feel like you’re competing with multiple people for multiple things all at once, based on different facets of our life. You might feel you need to have a better lasagna recipe than Suzy, while also beating Roger for the promotion at work, while also challenging Margaret for captain of your rec soccer league, while also convincing your boyfriend to settle down with you. If that sentence seems exhausting, it’s because it is. The people in life who challenge us are ever-changing and totally unpredictable.
Lastly, we don’t know when our game is going to end. No, I am not making a morbid reference to death. Does the game end when we die? Or does it end when we achieve a certain number of life milestones? Heck, we don’t even know when the game started. I hardly think the first thing we think popping into this bright beautiful world is, “So glad to be out of that woman’s uterus—I’m ready for this. Game on.”
You wouldn’t play a game that has no clear objective, unclear rules, an ever-changing cast of competitors. So why do we push so hard to treat life as if it’s some grand event we must win?
Getting Out of the Game
In school, we’re taught to compete to be the best. In the workplace, we’re all fighting for that next promotion. It’s hard not to constantly feel in competition with the world around you. These milestones in our lives are often framed in the context of others. It’s not, “I need to be the best.” Instead, we are taught we must beat everyone else to be the best. We’re led to believe the competition is not only a good thing, but necessary to motivate us to be our best. We are taught that excellence can only be achieved through winning.
The sad part is when our only focus is on the win, we lose the joy of the moments in life for what they are. Alfie Kohn, an experienced researcher of human behavior, put it best: “The point isn’t to paint or read or design a science experiment, but to win. The act of painting, reading, or designing is thereby devalued in [our] mind.” How often we trade the joy of living for various trophies and titles, and then wonder why, when surrounded by all these badges of success, we feel unhappy. You might be asking yourself, “How do I step out of the ‘game’ when everything around me feels like it’s created to drive competition?”
Changing the way we think about comparison and competition is hard, but not impossible. The first step is to recognize and acknowledge how you currently measure your personal success against others. The big ways we create competition are easy to recognize because they usually center around potential life milestones. For example, weddings, having kids, and advancing at work always seem to involve a ton of competition. You can’t just get married, you have to have the perfect wedding with the best band and the perfect dress. Your kids need to be top performers, and you have to give them a head start so they, like you, can win. You need to keep beating out everyone around you and do anything to ensure you get the new promotion.
These major stages of life are fraught with competition and are a good place to start acknowledging its presence in your life. When you make a conscious effort to recognize where you engage in this “winning over living” mentality in your life, you’ll likely realize you’re in way more sparring matches than you thought. Do you really need to battle to bake the best cupcakes? Is it really that important to reign as top vocalist at after-work karaoke? Probably not, but once we get caught in the competitive vortex we are pretty good at turning the dumbest and most meaningless things into opportunities to win. But why do we do this?
Research on how the brain processes victory shows that winning gives us a temporary high by releasing dopamine, the “feel-good” chemical. Dopamine is the neurotransmitter that’s responsible for that feeling of pleasure. The chemical release comes from a result of our identity being associated with a schema we have defined in our brain as important. Basically, the brain likes when we get to put ourselves into pretty boxes. However this emotional rush is temporary and will not persist forever.
As a result, we often find ourselves using comparisons in our day-to-day life to try and correct disappointment and get us back to the original high we experienced with our achievement. For example, you might compare yourself with the person you beat for a promotion and highlight how your skills are superior to theirs. This is called a downward comparison. Similarly, when you don’t win, you might make negative comparisons with the intention of motivating yourself to potentially achieve more. This is called an upward comparison. While comparisons can be helpful in personal development, when overused they can cause self-doubt, burnout, and feelings of worthlessness.
Downward Comparisons
We all want to be cool in our youth. Do you remember all the things we got into just because everyone else was into them? Uggs. Beanie Babies. Boy Bands. Whatever was popular at the moment, we wanted. Do you remember the girl at your high school (I am certain everyone had one) who had magically found her way to the epicenter of cool? She was the oracle or popularity. She decided what was in, for how long, and when it was out. If you’ve seen Mean Girls you know what I am talking about. Every high school has a Regina George.
My high school was no exception. Our high school prophetess of popularity was Amanda Scott. (That’s not her real name, because I’m a nice person.) I wanted Amanda to like me so badly. I thought maybe if she knew all the hard things I was dealing with at home that she would befriend me or at least be kinder to me. So I wrote Amanda a note. I told her absolutely everything I was going through—every gory detail. I told her how sad I was. I told her how much I looked up to her. I poured my soul out onto that college-ruled piece of paper, slid it into her locker, and waited.
I waited and waited and waited. I waited so long I thought I was going to drop dead due to a mix of anxiety and anticipation. Finally, when I walked into the hallway, Amanda pulled me aside and thanked me for my note. Nothing more. That was it. I has poured my entire life out in lead and tears and all she could say was “Thanks?” I was hurt and confused, but figured that was the end of it all. However, this is high school. It would not end there.
Later that day, while walking to my next class I overheard Amanda talking to another girl. I listened closely. Call it intuition or call it paranoia—I knew they were talking about me. Amanda’s hair perfectly bounced to the side as she casually said to her minion, “I may be have been having a rough time, but at least I am not putting notes in people’s lockers about it.” She laughed. They laughed. I died