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Is competition necessary to improvement? How does one know in absence of competition how well one is doing? Is there a need to know such a thing?
We first need to understand what is meant by the word competition. What is competition? Competition is the act of pursuing an activity driven by an end result, whose accomplishment is believed to be possible, in light of one’s actual ability at accomplishing or exceeding this set target.
A sense of competition does not kick in until one actually believes in the possibility of surpassing or being surpassed. An Olympic runner fears no competition from a desk worker who rarely exercises. Similarly, this desk worker sees no competition in competing in a race with this Olympic athlete. One is a sure win while other a sure defeat.
This implies that where competition exists it can bring about incremental progress as people strive to do better or out do another. However, one must not ignore the restless mental state that goes with it. This inner battle of the mind is as much an inner struggle, perhaps even more so, as the outer victory. Competition does not have to be externally focused. One may, and many do, compete with oneself, one’s own ability or one’s own last score.
All competition is based on comparison and all comparison is made possible as a result of measurement and measurement itself is an outcome of the mind. Without the mind there could be no measurement and consequently no comparison or competition.
Is it possible to achieve a state of mind in which the mind exists but its measuring faculty has been consciously put to rest against competition? Can such mind exist that can consciously choose to not indulge in psychological comparisons? For with psychological comparison comes competition which brings along the associated restlessness of anxiety, desire, fear, ambition, disappointment, jealousy, and the like. These impulses may drive one to excitement but they also take away the energy of this mind which could otherwise have been put to creative engagements and output. Only a mind free of psychological comparison is truly able engage itself completely and holistically in going beyond incremental progressions to a realm of innovative leaps that take the progress in science and thought farther by light years in a single jump of creativity. Great scientists such as Edison, Einstein stand as testament to this truth – the inventions and discoveries that one can come up on when one can totally engage in one’s pursuit regardless of another.
Competition then may bring about incremental progress but true innovation is made possible only by a mind that is not caught in psychological comparison. For only such a mind is free to fully engage the problem at hand, leading to a brand new solution as opposed to making incremental improvements on an existing set of answers.
Only a mind that is free of all measurement can be at rest, can be still, can admire and acknowledge another and oneself for who they are, without comparing, without judging, without competing. Only such a mind is capable of love, of creativity, of creating something new, and only such a mind can bring a total transformation in the human psyche.
