Without beating around the bush, in short, I reckon that people don’t have to be highly competitive in order to succeed. The basic and fundamental argument on which I’m standing and arguing this is that I believe in creativity more than I do in competition. When the creativity of human beings reaches the pinnacle, the word ‘competition’ loses its vigor. And the world that I have imagined is not created out of a competition amongst people; it is created out of their creativity.
And what is success for human beings? Is it name, money, fame or what?
For me, with no second thought, success is when any human being reaches his highest potential through his eternal creativity which lies dormant in most cases. Thus, I believe that the terms success and competition cannot be kept in the same horizon.
The history of this world is the witness, and it has always favored creative people than the competitive ones. Wouldn’t it be unfair to Bill Gates and Steve Jobs if we call them competitive? Any sane mind can now infer that the heights of success they achieved was because they did things in their own way, followed their heart and when they had an idea, they made it happen.
Well, do you remember the man who used to top the class Steve Jobs was in? Don’t ponder much, because you don’t need to. The answer is simple – these people were motivated by their creativity while others were driven by competition.
I’m surprised how society labels one human being as successful and another as unsuccessful. Every parent wants their offspring to overtake their relatives’ offspring. Thus, children under constant pressure to prove themselves via competition lose their creativity.
In fact, the word ‘competition’ itself adds to my confusion. How can two human beings compete? Each human being is a unique creation, isn’t he? I believe that only egoistic people want to show their superiority and thus create competition, so that they can prove themselves. What is the need of competing when you know that you are different from the person you are competing with?[break]
I vividly remember the fresh experience of listening Martin Luther Kings speech – ‘I have a Dream.’ Just like he dreamt of equality, I dream of the world where people won’t compete with each other, but instead cooperate and coordinate with each other by flourishing their creativity and create a better world.
However, I do believe in one type of competition – the competition with your own self. That competition makes you intrinsic. It helps you better your own records. And if we continuously better ourselves and look for areas of improvement, success will not be far away. Competition with the outer world creates a false motivation for success but competition with the self creates eternal motivation which leads to euphoria and success.
Therefore, success is not achieved by competing with this outer world but it is achieved when you compete with yourself and tap your eternal potentials within you which are waiting to be unleashed.
I’m always inspired by the quote of the Buddha: “It is better to conquer yourself than to conquer thousands of battles.” Now you can choose your way, either compete and perish, or flourish with creativity.
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