Competition. Is it good or bad?

 

Competition. Is it good or bad?

I was living in Calgary. Almost every Friday I was motivated by the “need” to purchase something or other and to choose which mall to go to. I would choose a mall that had a few stores that sold my coveted item. Competition motivated me. I wanted to compare and contrast.

Now I live in a little town. I try to shop locally, but I am deterred by the lack of competition. I know that I will pay more for my purchases if there is no competition, so I go to where there is competition, but with a heavy heart. I want to support my local merchants, but they often take advantage of being the only supplier of some things. A town without healthy competition is heading towards extinction.

All my life I supported competition as a great motivator of humanity, and I still do for many things. I look at nature and see how the animals and even the plants thrive on it. Lately, however, a new idea began nagging at my mind. We are the elite species in this world, endowed with a mind and conscience by far surpassing primitive animals and plants.

Took us millions of years to arrive at where we are now, mostly trusting the natural selection and we are thriving. The problem is that by being oriented to competition a select few do very well and the many who do not win must do the best they can with the leftovers. We accept it and shut up. If a mega-corporation wants to sell our oil for a huge profit, we are happy to have some jobs building the pipeline.

This results from an education system based on ranking and selection system. You learn in your formative years, perhaps in kindergarten, that if you are not built to excel in something your life will be mediocre or drab and your mother tells you to learn to live with it. You also learn that if your family is not one of the top families, your chances of success are greatly diminished. It is not a fair world and there is nothing you can do about it so give it up.

In nature, animals and plants have a way to deal with inequality. It is called strength by numbers. Smaller, weaker creatures can survive very well by using overwhelming numbers. Humans restrict the power of those who didn’t win in the competition. If people protest we out-law protests. Resentment builds up until violence erupts. President Kenedy famously said that silencing people by force is dangerous. That is how wars and revolutions start.

The masses are educated to accept ranking by competition. Our education system is built upon finding the high achievers, often those with better memory and making others mimic them. Deep analytical minds or those who prefer quality ahead of quantity are shoved aside. They face a mediocre life or suicide. We celebrate good students with awards and forget the majority who do not do well with the stress that education places upon them. Yet their labor will keep the economy going. The average people are not recognized for their united efforts.

The race for superior economic production is good for economic growth, but doesn’t factor the majority into the calculations. We produce a lot of garbage and destroy the planet in doing so. Size is more important than what you do with it is not a good argument.

If you use our most advanced science to observe the universe, you witness a curious phenomenon. Everything exists in balance with everything else. The water on our planet seeks the same level., making the planet suitable for sustaining life. Moons planets and stars move in orbit while held in place by gravity. Males and females compete with each other in their own unique ways but can’t ensure future survival without each other. I call it God’s law. A competition that must end in balance.

Like any other game, the game of life would be boring if there was no conflict to spice it up. People can regulate the game by using rules that most of the players can agree with. We need both competition and rules for the game, which will force some reasonable level of equality.

Competition motivates us to move forward so we can’t do away with it. Many have tried and failed. Communism is a good example that now is practically gone. Useless rules are the same. We must always amend them to make things work. Politicians should be the hardest working amongst us and held accountable for the outcome of their actions.

If the world is my aquarium, I don’t want the nicest fish always on top, the vicious in the middle, and millions of bottom feeders on the floor. I want an interesting changing display of fish of all kinds dancing all over the place. The fish inside can’t see the living-room since they only see a reflection of themselves.

I believe that God designed the world as an aquarium and designed us to use our superior minds to make sure that it will work well if we do what we are predestined to do. He knew that we may try, self destructs, and try again.

I look at the pyramids that now long gone civilizations left behind and try to figure out how we may do better. The only way is to learn from the past and apply the lessons.

We must use our primitive competitive nature and moderate it with modern knowledge. We must use our appetite to feed our bodies and control it not to overeat. Use competition to move forward and minds to stop before destroying our paradise.

Here is a link to my blog: https://thesimpleravenspost.blogspot.ca/  Feel free to check other articles and comment.