Competition

Competition can bring out the best in products but also the worst in people. Bertrand Russell said: "Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim".

Competition is defined as rivalry for supremacy or a prize. A contest for honour or to gain an advantage. There is a victor and a loser not necessary resulting in the destruction of the other. A struggle.

The Competitive World

Competition is serious business. When we were young our parents told us that if we do not study hard, we will be carrying night soil. To the uninitiated, night soil is in plain-speak "shit" in buckets normally carried by uneducated people in the old days when there is no sanitary services available. They place new buckets for you and disposed your filled ones where they carry to the world's vehicle with the most doors - all 36 doors to be exact. So do not be too happy if the company wanted to give you a car with 36 doors.

Nations today are competing with each other for jobs, commodities, food and oil. Even ideas and ideals which sometimes can even lead to conflicts and clashes. Competition has even been happening to schools so to speak. When you run for political office you face competition, when you work at the office there is competition.

Competition Is Everywhere

Every corner you turn, everywhere you go and in everything you do there is bound to be competition. You compete in school, in sports, in games, to get into a train, to get to a sales first and lay your hand onto what you wanted. Even a golf foursome battle for bragging rights. Even fans compete when you cheer for your team or idol. Shops compete for your money too and people compete for attention, affection and promotion. How is it possible to ignore competition in life?

Are we prepared for today's fast-paced competition in society? Do we ask questions, explore and contemplate on issues, controversies, values, pros and cons? What about a choice of having what it takes to live with honour for a start and then living confidently in a competitive world?

What Is Competition?

Recently, I wrote about the "Sputnik Moment" where in 1957 the former USSR launched the Sputnik satellite into space. This surprised the US who plunged into a space race. Surely at the time the Americans feared that Russia would have a technological advantage. What if they could launch weapons that can reach the US? The Russian's success sprang the US into action. This was a form of competition but not every competition need two opposing forces as one can compete by doing better than your last score in sports or in business sales.

Golf is one where you actually compete against oneself as even your opponents and competitors do not even stop you from playing or if you are a runner competing against your personal best time. Your efforts may not be as concentrated when in a non-competitive environment. The Sputnik gave the US a wake up call to set new goals and a rallying cry to better the USSR. President John F. Kennedy proclaimed boldly that he believed that the nation should commit itself to achieving the goal of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely before the decade is out.

Now status quo is not good anymore. Schools have to increased and teach better in Maths and Science. How many of you know the competition is not a zero sum game? Nothing is more inspiring than to see an American and a Russian shaking hands in outer space sometime in 1975 ending the competition and beginning a new cooperation.

As a result, a long list of discoveries that benefitted mankind were unearthed. Well, when you are in outer space you are really 100% unearthed. A string of great discoveries in fact like Internet (previously known as arpanet) ultrasound technology, satellite communication, freeze-dried food stuffs and GPS systems. One can look at it as a struggle for limited resources like food or a job or a promotion or you can better yourselves through great discoveries. Competition is not bad or good but it is according to the people in competition who made them to be depending on their methods and motives that are used to reach their goals.

All competition has consequences due to its cause and effect, all of us need to give it careful consideration in our involvement even though some of which may be unintended.

Dangers, Greed & Temptation

Knowing the possible dangers can help us avoid mines in a minefield just like how a golfer would know dangers on a golf course. For example, winning at the expense of others or at great costs to ourselves should be carefully weighed. Highly competitive desires can lead to wild fires of uncontrollable magnitude if left unchecked.

Everybody loves rewards. Money, recognition, achievements. Some of us enjoy more when you have fatter pay checks which affords you bigger houses, bigger and faster cars, etc. Some CEOs made millions in a year, some in a month. It can take a low wage worker a few thousand years to earn anything decently close to that.

Sportsmen including soccer stars are a good yardstick. They are the most loyal players money can buy. Hardly anyone completes their contract these days. Some soccer players felt sad and unhappy for earning a hundred thousand pounds a week.

Some folks play to their own rules or they play outside of the rules so much so that they gone to a stage of no return, falling from grace and go from boardrooms to prison rooms for criminal breaches despite being wealthy captains of industries. This is cheating to gain advantage. Greed and temptation. Have you not read about athletes who used illegal substance to boost their performance? If there is so much cheating then the burden is placed squarely on the shoulders of those who don't. Are the rewards really that great that you would hurt yourself and others to gain an unfair advantage? Is it worth it? Is it honourable?

Fanaticism

Soccer fanatics can become hooligans when they cross the thin line. It gets ugly. There is an inner drive to compete and a compelling need to succeed sometimes at the cost of time say with important people in your life like family, friends or the willingness to engage in other activities which can be more important. We can sacrifice something vital like our children's school concert in preference for some business activities.

We can find rational and legitimate reasons why it is not possible to be there. If you have ever done that, many years from now you would have forgotten why you could not but your children will or they see other parents there with them and you may regret it. When we are all too absorbed with work and only work and one day we die. All the business or organisation need is to replace you - no matter how much it costs and regardless if the replacement is only half as capable as you but to your family especially the children you are the world to them, there is no substitute in this world that could take your place.

Imagine your child having a high fever and you are at work in a meeting. Everyday we have meetings and they are all important or so it seems. Of course, the someone else could bring the child to a doctor and you can justify to yourselves: "Well, after all I am not a doctor so there is not much I can do even if I were there". Anything that we can get hooked, be it drinking, work, hobbies or just watching TV all day - this is a deficit in priority. Our priorities can rage out of control like a wild fire.

Paradox

Life is a paradox, so is competition. You can be competitive by nature or by training but few have control over it once get a hang of it but competition in itself is not a bad thing just as drugs administered in a controlled portion can make sick people well but over-dosage can be lethal. Competition can inspire. Many great stories arose as a result of competition with many who have overcome great odds to have risen to success from previous depths of despair. Great sportsmen who became addicted to drugs, alcohol or became bankrupt got to such a point when the competition was over, when there was no more adulation from fans or no more highs to conquer.

Dave Thomas created an international food business out of nothing and it is called Wendy's. There was a basketball player Muggsy Bogues who despite being only 5ft 3ins had a career in the NBA. In a few years, a college kid Mark Zuckerberg started "facebook" and now he is worth billions. They found ways around roadblocks to triumph.

Some companies spend money for staff retreats or on motivational seminars. This is to build team spirit - esprit de corps. You can be a talented individual but no matter what more gets done when there is team work where everybody works together as a well functioning unit. As The Three Musketeers' chant: "One for all and all for one". The sum of it all happens for good when all talents and skills blend together especially when on one jostles for personal credit.

Teamwork

Lionel Messi cannot go it alone despite his immense gift. He needs a team and is always humble to say so. Think hamburgers and you will realise that one of the greatest and most successful franchises in history that have maybe more than 30,000 restaurants worldwide and have some opening somewhere everyday and where the founder's estate gets paid millions each day simply because they knew competition and teamwork. Nobody could emulate them. Why?

Whether you are seated in corporate HQ, flipping burgers or cleaning the floor, they focus entirely on teamwork and quality - of their employees. You get to learn lifetime skills none of which is greater than teamwork. Only wise leaders understood that. Many people working individually and many units working together is as different as lightning and a lightning bug.

Development

Why do we play sports? Physical training can be no fun and can get us exhausted. It could also drain us mentally. Sports teach us to think, act and react and to pursue success. You have to work with a coach and get along with team mates and how to deal with victories and defeats, success and failures. You are sharpening yourselves while doing all these. It can spur you on and give you confidence. Just like how National Service can change a person turning a boy into a man.

One can strive to win and do one's best but can it be said that we must play it fair? Some can watch a soccer game and go berserk because of the perception that the referee was unfair. Some players dive in the penalty box even when no one touches them and others' tackles are knee-high. Fair play is not as important. Robbier Fowler was once adjudged to have been fouled by the opposing goalie in the penalty box and he pleaded with the referee not to award a penalty in his favour. When the referee ignored him, he took the penalty by passing the ball to the goalie. Madness you may think but it took a great person to do that.

This is an innate knowledge that must prevail within us regardless of circumstances when we engage others in competition. There will be times when in the face and name of competition, people will cheat or become inhumane just to gain an advantage while causing hurt to others. When you are hungry do not eat your principles. Our sense of right and wrong must be written on and live within our hearts at all times without compromise. Anyone with fairness and integrity in his heart will automatically and spontaneously respond in a correct way regardless.

Honour And Confidence

Please remember it's not about winning and losing. It is always about honour. This must be rooted in us as it forms our wisdom and character. You can't do terrible things to people and then tell your children not to do it. It doesn't work that way. In this way, you can then compete with integrity, honour and confidence and you will soon find that we can live in a competitive world in such a way that our well-being is not dependent on whether we win or lose a business or contractor or even a simple argument.

I know some folks will point to you that "Winning isn't everything. It's the only thing". The Olympic credo goes that "The most important things is not winning but in taking part". True but when a carrot worth millions is dangled on a stick, a different story is told. Just like a runner, swimmer, how would you run your race? It must not be down to a spirit of fear (fear of losing) but of power and a strong and sound mind. Win or lose, prosperity or poverty, one must learn to be content and then do what is needed to bounce back. It is not the end of the world. In any competition including wars, victors learn less than those defeated.

Be A Humble Winner

Some of us hinge our happiness on solely winning. When defeated they could not accept it with grace. They blame others or look for excuses. Throw tantrums or sulk. Some competitors are a disappointment to their fans for their irresponsible behaviour. They bring the sports into disrepute. Some people accept victory with arrogance not knowing that pride comes before a fall. If you knew what it is like to be in need or know how it is like to have plenty you would have learned the secret and art of contentment in all situation.

Rudyard Kipling wrote in his famous poem: "If a humble and gentle winner can face triumph and disaster and treat those two impostors just the same. If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue or walk with kings nor lose the common touch". The good winner is consistent and always the same - win or lose. In sports, they have written riles to play the game fairly. What about the business world? If you do insider trading on Wall Street you do prison time. What about your moral compass at work?

Conclusion

In the heat of battle, we may sometimes hear ourselves saying: "You have to look after yourself. If you don't, nobody will. So, there is nothing wrong to cut corners and bend rules. After all, everybody else is doing it." This is the point where you have to say: "I am not everybody else". People everywhere are pursuing money, acclaim, victory and glory. Nothing wrong with these aims in itself if pursued nobly.

But beware the dangers of the competitive situations in our own lives. I pray that as you go through the rigours of life in this competitive world, you will respond correctly and appropriately regardless of the circumstances each time without fail. Remember that when we compete we are actually competing against ourselves. Do not take unethical short cuts.

Of late Tiger Woods now being called "world number three" (sounds strange) has been making the news but this time for spitting. Who says only Singapore fine people for this anti-social habit? USGA fined Tiger too. Next time I golf I will bring along a dog those type that drool excessively and let him on the green and you know how sticky the saliva can be. Then I will stand aside and watch how your rolling putts get stuck onto some gooey saliva.

There is competition even in characters from a galaxy far far away on the planet of Naboo. Don't you think sometimes you want to be Darth Vader?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81fwEmP2CKY (Star Wars - Darth Vader)

Darth Vader - golf: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNgUHO9gskQ

Star Wars - Wah si lim laopeh
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEHXFYIZcLc

Wah si lim laopeh when literally translated from Hokkien means I am your father. Be a good example and a role model like a good father. I am not even asking you to be holy.