I am a
fairly competitive person. In fact, I am
so competitive that I have been known to incite family fights while playing
board games at Christmastime. To me, if you are not playing to win there is no
point in playing at all. A competitive
attitude can be a good thing because it causes you to challenge yourself and it
pushes you to do your best.
On the
other hand, it is hard to be happy when you are ultra-competitive. If you lose at something, you are mad because
you feel that you should always win. If
you win, you are not happy because you only did what you expected yourself to
do. In a sense, having to win all the
time is a “no win situation”.
One other
problem that competitive people have is that it is hard for them to be happy when
other people succeed. Thinking in “me
versus you” terms automatically causes us to believe that “success” comes in
limited quantities. In other words,
competition makes us see success like a pie: if you get more then I
automatically get less.
But what if
“success” is actually unlimited? What if
your success has no negative effect on me at all? If that is true, then I can be happy for any
good thing that happens to you.
This is the
worldview that Paul urges the Roman church adopt when he tells them to,
“Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another” (Romans
12:15-16). Their relationships were to
be defined by things like compassion and empathy rather than competition. In fact, earlier in that same chapter, each
person is told to use whatever gift they have been given so that they can help
and bless one another (verses 1-8). Individual
success was not the goal.
Happiness
is found not when we acquire more stuff than the next person, but when we learn
to rejoice in our own blessings and use them to help one another.
“Carry each
other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians
6:2).
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