Competing Vs Creating
Jul
I had a thought about competition today. Do some words become meaningless because the context for their existence is gone?
According to Wikipedia, competition means:
a combat between individuals, groups, nations, animals, etc. for territory, a niche, or allocation of resources. It arises whenever two or more parties strive for a goal which cannot be shared.
I mean who looks into the mirror and says: “There’s got to be someone that looks, talks, thinks, feels exactly like me out there and I should worry that s/he’ll appear and take over my life!” ?
I often wonder that if we, as individuals and businesses, replaced the term ‘competing’ with ‘creating’? What if just for a day (or a week, or a month, or a year or a lifetime!) we stopped thinking about our competition? What would it mean? In my opinion, it would mean
- that a whole lot of energy, effort and time will set itself off in the right direction
- that we will feel far more settled into ourselves, comfortable with our abilities. We’ll worry far less about who’s doing what and when and how
- there will be a space created for more innovative, creative ideas to flow
Competing made sense when there was only so much (land? market? money?). But times have changed, opportunities have cropped up everywhere. There’s enough for everyone. Maybe there’s no need to be guided by the attitude of ‘lack’ anymore.
Maybe the time to compete is over. What do you think?
Image Courtesy: Lydd Nel, Flickr
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When a herd of zebras are attacked by a lion, the “logical” thing for each individual is to run away. However a whole herd scattering slows down the whole herd, allowing itself to be a panicky but easy feast. The young calves bear the brunt.
But herds dont scatter in real life. The strong ones keep the herd in (highly effective) formation, which ensures that more of the herd survives, than in a pure scatter response. Even if the strongest are killed, their offspring will survive.
The moral of the story: relationships in herds of any creature, including humans are of a COMPLEX nature. Its NOT competiton which underlies the “complex web” (Darwin’s term).
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13671-evolution-myths-survival-of-the-fittest-justifies-everyone-for-themselves.html
Love this post. I compete every day… with myself.
Am I getting better, smarter and more valuable to others. If yes, then it’s a good day. If no, then I have work to do.
To bad more folks don’t approach life the same way. They feel they need to be better than someone else…they measure themselves in relation to others… shame. Because at the end of the day, you’re in a box by yourself in the ground and as long as you made the most of each day, who cares if you were better than someone else?
@TomMartin
Tom Martin´s last blog ..Can You Make People Buy?
Ah Tom, thank you for passing by! One thing I snipped off the post was:’(I think) whoever coined the word competition must be extremely insecure.’ It wasn’t coming out right, but I meant to say that when individuals and companies come from a space of being self-assured, the idea of competition is less and less about the ‘other’ and more and more about ‘oneself’.
So here’s to a future of deeper creativity and lesser competition