Daily Discussion No. 7: How Do We Learn to Compete Fairly Without Resorting to Negative Actions?

Welcome to another edition of "Daily Discussion," a community engagement initiative designed to stimulate more interaction on Steemit!

To learn more about the Daily Discussion initiative, please visit the Introductory Post for a full description and participation guidelines.  

Competition, Good or Bad...

We live in a competitive world. And even though I'm not a particularly competitive person, I'll be the first to admit that fair competition can be a good thing that leads to positive outcomes.

Note that I used the word "fair," there.

A Lot of Competition is NOT Fair

Sadly, much of the competitive world is not governed by fairness... from business, to sports, to religion, to personal rivalries, there remarkably oftentends to be an ominous subtext of malice in the picture.

As an avid people watcher and student of human behavior and motivation, I watch this manifest in many different ways:

The political candidate who doesn't stand on his or her own record and achievements, but instead spends most of their time trying to make their opponent look bad.

The business people who don't put nearly as much effort into developing their own excellence as they put into (sometimes falsely) spreading rumors about their competitors' shortcomings.

The religious congregations who are not happy with merely preaching a positive message of their own, but must also spend lots of time and effort engaged in smearing and invalidating those who think differently from they.

In personal rivalries-- sports, work, dating and more-- we see it as effort spent on sabotaging others rather than highlighting one's own positive attributes.

Fear and Control

On a personal level, negative paradigms like these leave me feeling uneasy. I look at what these people and groups are saying and doing... and it feels like someone's gains or opinions only feel "valid" to them, when they exist at the exclusion or expense of anyone else's.

It's almost like they are thinking to themselves "I cannot be right (or have something good) unless everyone else agrees with me (or has something bad); my opinion lacks validity unless it is supported by the failure of others."

From where I am sitting, that seems very fear based. Fear based, like someone who isn't fully convinced that what they are fighting for (or selling) actually is the best... or even striving to be the best. In a sense, they are putting "winning" ahead of "being right."

I remember the uneasy feelings from working in my 20's where I often didn't have time to really do my best because I had to expend a lot of effort looking out for whomever or whatever was intent on tripping me up.

Inevitability?

Some would argue (and did!) that I should just "get over myself" and accept that such sneakiness and sabotage is merely human nature and "we all do it." 

But I am really not onboard with that, and I never really was.

Whether it served me well or not, I tended to be a "cage rattler" who would go to some trouble to expose what I thought of as "sketchy behavior." I still tend to do that, and I am still not sure whether it serves me well... except for leaving me with the sense that I acted from a place of honesty and justice... rather than just "looking the other way," or even countering the sketchy activity with dubious behaviors of my own.

I always thought it best to "lead by example" rather than assume a "if you can't beat them, join them" paradigm. Again-- possibly-- to my detriment.

The question still lingers, though, whether cheating, manipulating, competing unfairly and so on... is simply an inevitable part of human nature.

Let's Discuss!

What do YOU think?  Does it seem to you that some people compete with malice? Does it seem like they cannot simply "win," without turning everyone else into "losers?" Do you engage in such practices, yourself? If you do, have you gained by doing so? If you do NOT do such things, do you find it distasteful? Does it seem like competition often is not fair? Leave a comment-- share your opinions and input-- be part of the conversation!  I want to hear from you-- and others want to hear from you, as well!  Share your thoughts and experiences below! 

Remember... the purpose of the Daily Discussion initiative is to interact, and however little or large your contribution might be, it does matter! If you decide to write an entire post as a response to the above questions, remember to use the tag #dailydiscussion and include "Daily Discussion No. 7" as part of your title, and you are welcome share a link to your post in the comment section!  

(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
Created at 171211 19:43 PDT