Competition

I have a friend who loves to play competitive sports and games. I started going to a pub quiz held every fortnight with them and some other friends, but after a while I found that my friend's overly competitive nature took the enjoyment out of it and I was no longer so keen. For each question he took it very seriously and if we didn't know the answer we had to keep going back over and over the sticky questions. If we got the answers wrong we had to do a postmortem at the end to see where we went wrong and how far off we were. I am not as you may have gathered that fazed about winning.

The last few days I've been thinking about how to survive in life it is a competition. During school there is always the pressure to be the best and you are compared to others throughout. It doesn't get easier, at university you have to try to excel and on entering the job market only the best are sought after. On being introduced to people you are always asked what you do and it is expected that you are good at what you do.

There are very few jobs these days where you are not constantly being assessed on how you do and where your salary isn't in some way influenced by how good you are. Even if you work for an organization you are trying to compete for that organization with other people who could do the same in a different company. Charities and other organizations working for the good of others are often having to compete for funding and therefore even if they are not aiming for it, their work is performance driven.

I just wish we didn't all depend on money to lead our lives and that one could do one's work without feeling compelled to have to compare with someone else and measure where you are in relation to the world around you. Perhaps there is a way, I just have to find it.