Irregardless

It seems no matter what we do these days, we find ourselves engaged in some kind of competition. While competition in sports exists almost by definition, these days competition extends far beyond feats of strength, endurance and agility into areas traditionally performed out of necessity or pure joy such as cooking, writing poetry, dancing, even eating.

The introduction of a competition into our lives moves our focus from the daily pursuit of excellence that we call our training, to one of results – from the proverbial journey to the destination. We come to think that our ability, and in some cases, our self worth, is somehow tied up in the relative position in which we finish. Are we first? Did we get a podium spot? No? What went wrong?

How often do you hear (or say) I came in 4th, but I was (1) only 2 minutes off the lead (2) injured three weeks before and couldn’t train (3) I got a flat at mile 51 (4) whatever, explaining to the world just why it is that we didn’t win. Well, the reality is, we didn’t win because someone else was better prepared then us at that point in time. Rather than dwell on the results of the contest we are better served by focusing on our own performance and we how might modify our training to improve it in the future. Since it is unlikely any of us will ever be the best in the world at what we do, we gain more through self examination than by trying to control who shows up for the race.

This self assessment then becomes the best reason of all to compete. Training, after all, is about becoming as good as you can be at what you do. Competition provides a map for determining where your training has taken you.

We train every day of our lives without knowing it. We reach outside ourselves and engage with the world, learning, striving, trying to be the best people we can be. And every now and then we encounter some crisis, some difficult decision, and we are tested. These are not tests with clear winners and losers. They are opportunities to see through our own conduct, our willingness to show strength over weakness, to choose principle over dogma or personal wealth just how effective our training has been. These are opportunities that help us regain our context and move ahead, no matter how well or poorly we actually perform. When we don’t perform up to our own expectations, we can choose to make excuses, we can choose to live with regret, or we can modify our training to better our chances for a more satisfactory outcome in the future.

In the end, life cannot be won, so we have to be content with how well we play our own individual game.