“If you aren’t in to win, what are you doing here?”—Linus Torvalds
Competition is bad, right? Nonsense. Competition pushes everyone to get better. If we are not setting out everyday to be our best—to come out on top—what are we doing?
Personally, I want to see everyone do well. As an educator, I want to push my students to excel. As a parent, I want to see my children do exceedingly well in sports and school. Everyone wins with competition. The alternative is mediocrity for all.
I know my opinion is not shared by some—particularly colleagues in certain areas of academia—but, nonetheless, I want to see my kids compete. I want them to win and lose. (Preferably, they lose early on and develop the skills and drive to be winners later on—in life, as well as sports.)
Certainly, an unbalanced sense of competition—e.g., “win-at-all-cost”—is unhealthy, but there is nothing unhealthy about striving to be one’s best. Society needs each generation of young people to drive the future. Society needs forward thinkers and people who want to outdo their predecessors.
I recently finished reading Top Dog: The Science of Winning and Losing by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman. (Recommended!!) Honestly, there were no surprises, per se, but it is enlightening to really get into the science of winning and losing. We just aren’t wired to passively go through life. This book was a fascinating read. It left me all the more convinced of my obligation as a parent to instill a sense of competition in my children, as well as my students.
Now, one cannot expect to be the best at everything. Perhaps, some may not be the best at anything—but I doubt this. After all, one is unique and, therefore, already the best at being one’s self. No one can compete with being you. But, today’s self has an obligation to be better than yesterday’s self and expect to be outdone by tomorrow’s self. Anything less is to misuse one’s talents.
Push the limits. Extend your comfort zone. Be your best today; be better tomorrow!
Be (extra)ordinary.
Push your peers to be better.
Accept nothing less than your best and the best in those around you.
Competition is not about making losers out of our opposition. Competition is about making learners of us all. After all, what is not gained by everyone being his or her best? The world is always a better place with competition—honest competition.
“Every youth owes it to himself and to the world to make the most possible out of the stuff that is in him.”—Orison Swett Marden