Is Life A Competition? It’s Eroding Your Empathy
Do we need to have a win-lose mindset to succeed?
I’m constantly comparing myself to others and rating myself on a scale of ‘success’. I’m either better or worse than someone else.I think to myself:
If life’s a race then I’m in last place, right?
I have to work harder and longer hours, so I can finally one-up my competition. Sometimes, it feels like that’s my only goal, but it’s not.
It’s All In The Mind
When I compare myself to others, I downplay my successes.
I might have gained 200 followers last month, but other writers gained 2000! I made x amount, but someone else made triple that.
The thing is, I forget how far I’ve come, and how grateful I should be.
When I’m comparing myself to others, and thinking of ways to ‘win’, I can lose my goals or motivation.
For example, I could’ve written fifty Medium-centric articles to get more views and followers. That would be a way to ‘catch up’, but I didn’t join Medium to talk about Medium.
I came here to share my thoughts and personal stories!
Sometimes, how far I’ve climbed is more important than the height of the peak.
I don’t need to compare myself to others. I’m forcing myself to.
Emotionless Monsters
If all you want to do is ‘win’, you lose all empathy, compassion and emotion for other human beings.
You’ll shove someone to get in the lead or take steroids to get a strength boost. Is that who we truly are, or want to be?
Think of life as a journey together.
We can all help each other, instead of pushing each other down to rise higher. In fact, helping one another can help us all achieve greater heights.
We Are 3-Dimensional
So what if you have more followers than me? That’s not the only metric of so-called success. There are plenty of other skills I probably can outdo you in.
Instead of telling myself how I’m worse than someone in x, I try to remind myself of what I’m good at, or how much I’ve improved.
Quitting because you‘re in last place doesn’t help. You’ll just be stuck there longer.
Giving up is the only true failure, so don’t.
Just keep going, and you’ll eventually achieve a lot more than you could ever dream! Think about what you’re good at.
The Abundance Mindset
In school, there was only one Valedictorian. Only one person can come out on top, so it’s been ingrained in us that there’s only so much success out there.
This mindset of ‘limited’ opportunities and success turns life into an even bigger competition. But really, it isn’t.
There’s enough success out there for everyone.
For one person to be happy and successful, it’s not as though everyone else must suffer. We can all be successful together.
On Medium, it’s not as though only one writer can get 10K followers. You might say, but only one person can be the most followed writer!
Sure, that’s true. But so what?
Do we really need to chase the top spot? You’d live a sad life if you moped about because you weren’t the best in:
- Cooking
- Writing
- Making money
- Making friends
- Skateboarding
- Singing
You don’t need to be the best in the world. Just be the best for yourself.
Mental Health
When I find myself comparing myself to others and moping about how I’m in last place, I become upset.
Nothing cheers me up, and all I can think about is how I’m inferior to every single other person who lives or has lived on this planet. This isn’t good for your mental health.
According to the WHO, approximately 280 million people in the world have depression.
The rat race of life could be a huge factor in that.
Don’t spend your life comparing it to others.
It’s a serious waste of time. If you’re worse than someone in a certain aspect, moping about it doesn't help. Instead, find ways to improve and learn from others.
What’s Your Goal?
Maybe you don’t want to be 1st in the world. Perhaps you’re okay with being in the middle, and not winning the race.
Recognising that is huge.
It means you don’t have to compete with other people to feel satisfied. Achieving your personal goal is most important. What everyone else does is irrelevant.
On Medium, I’m setting myself goals of how many followers, reads and earnings I hope to get this month. I’m hoping to increase them from last month.
And I know that achieving those goals will be enough. I don’t need to care whether some other writer made more or less than I did.
A Healthy Competition
Of course, there’s always a good side to the story. There’s a certain amount of competition that’s healthy, and even beneficial for us.
When I know there are others out there grinding away, I push myself to work hard as well. When I don’t do as well as someone else, I’m spurred on to prove to them that I can succeed.
Losing doesn’t have to make you upset.
It can be your biggest motivator to succeed when you think about it the right way. Learn from your competition, and improve yourself.
Final Thoughts
We’re all people in progress.
Improving yourself is more important than beating others, and it’s key to happiness and success.
We can grow together!
I hope you found this article insightful. Thanks for reading!
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