Yoga Michigan

One early morning, a man began running laps at a local track field. He seemed to be enjoying the run. Then, a woman joined the field. The man did not see her as she started running behind him. The woman was a faster runner, and she quickly passed him. The moment he noticed her fly by, an interesting thing happened. First the man had a surprised and offended look on his face. Then he noticeably sped up to pass her. The problem was, he could not keep up that pace for long and dropped out a minute later. His refreshing morning run was ruined.

If you drive, you may notice a similar phenomenon at four-way stops. Some people speed up to get to the stop when they see another car coming from the other direction, then abruptly step on their breaks to simulate a stop, and continue before the other guy dare goes ahead of them. What causes people to create these imaginary competitions and feel a need to win them?

Sadly, competition has become ingrained in our culture. It starts when we are babies in some cases, when parents enter their child in a baby pageant. Kids are expected to compete in sporting events, for school grades, in musical competitions, spelling bees, science fairs, beauty pageants, etc. At local fairs there are eating competitions and costume competitions, cooking competitions and talent competitions, you name it. And as if it were not enough to get fellow humans to compete, we make our pets and animals participate in our competitions. Some households and businesses display their certificates and trophies in a conspicuous place as if to brag of the fact that they won such competitions. 

Of course, where there are winners, there must also be losers. By making life into a chain of competitions, the goal becomes winning instead of appreciating the experience itself. The persons we compete against become our enemies, and by cultivating our need to compete, we are also inadvertently cultivating our need to create imaginary enemies and to become aggressive towards them. No wonder there is so much unhappiness around.

Let children play a musical instrument or sport because they enjoy it, and not to win a competition. Let us cook or eat to nourish ourselves, not to compete to prove that we are better at it than someone else. Who cares if someone can eat faster, or larger quantities, or spicier foods than we can? The way to peace and harmony is to get rid of the imaginary competitions in our daily lives.