A Random Thought I woke up with this morning

I have no idea why, but this morning I woke up thinking about people that put you down or constantly try and enter into competition with you.

I don’t know why I woke up with this thought because my brain doesn’t usually work in the mornings (why else would I have woken up one random morning singing ‘Ice Ice baby? ) and I have no idea why on this particular morning because I’m exhausted and feel fluey and even though it’s now 14:27pm, my brain still isn’t working.

Anyway, back to this thought of mine. I got to thinking about competitive friends with one particular friend in mind. As an aside, I realised while I was thinking about this that I don’t have many friends who I feel are competitive towards me so for that, I should be grateful. This friend of mine is absolutely lovely and while she is competitive and very successful by nature, it’s not something that is normally a feature of our relationship. However every once in a while, she’ll make some comment. Sometimes it’s as random a comment as ‘your laptop must be really old, it’s so much heavier than mine even though it is much smaller. Mine must be much better.’ and on that occasion I actually called her on it and said, ‘Yes, my laptop is old and your laptop is better but so what? Why do you feel the need to point it out? Are we having some laptop competition I am oblivious to?’ Often though, it comes up in reference to this pasta dish I gave her the recipe for and taught her how to make. Now she makes it very often and is sure to point out every time I make it, that hers tastes different (read better) and when she makes it amongst people who have tried both mine and hers, she’s makes a point of asking them which one is better. Now this isn’t a big deal at all, and it doesn’t bother me but it occurred to me yesterday that maybe it should. Because the problem with competition is that it is never friendly. Competition implies a winner and a loser and anyone who instigates conscious competition, does it with the intention of winning and hence proving their competition to be a loser. And this is what I have a problem with, someone trying to prove me to be a loser … why do they feel the need to do that? Please note that my problem isn’t with the fact that I can lose. I am not great at everything. In fact, I am bad at a lot of stuff.

The more I thought about it, the more I realised that I would never ever do the same to her or anyone else. If she truly believes her pasta dish is better, why does she need me to know it before she can be happy about it? Surely, the fact that it’s better should give her enough satisfaction. Hence my previous point, she only feels good about that particular achievement after she has made me feel bad. I know it seems trivial talking about food and I admit the whole thing is rather silly which is why I would never even bring it up with her. But to make my point, let’s talk about war. In the days of bloody wars complete with raping and pillaging, surely the fact that the winner had now acquired the losing territory was enough victory. For them to go to their prisons and start to tell their captives details of what they had done with their land and women would be low by any standard.

Now I am as competitive as the next person but honestly truly, it’s only with myself. I don’t give a damn how badly someone else is doing at work or how much they have let themselves go or how many failed relationships they have had because it doesn't make me better at my job, relationships or taking care of myself. In fact, it doesn't reflect on me in anyway. I am my own toughest critic and if I am not happy with myself or the state of my life, I know that I can only fix it from within. Whether I feel good or bad about myself however, I can only ever feel happy for other people’s successes.

Basically, I came to the conclusion that, I shouldn’t be offended by people putting me down, instead I should feel flattered that they feel the need to put themselves in the same competition as me.