Balancing Competition With A Healthy Lifestyle.

Growing up to understand life, my first competition was with my siblings. This is because we did almost everything together. I remember sometimes when Mum would have to put our meal together on a plate and watch us eat together. Whenever she was around, we would eat carefully just to avoid her correcting us or making fun of us.

Just wait till the day she is not around us. The competition is way beyond the Olympic competition. We would have to rush those spoonfuls into our throats so that we don't get cheated on. It would now turn to the survival of the strongest. My brother will always eat the most since he is the eldest, then I will follow up, and then my younger sister since she is the slowest.

Those competitions actually bridged love and togetherness among us. Gradually we came to understand that there is no reason for rushing the food since it's all ours.

The competition advanced to academics. This is where it got even more healthier. My brother is good at his studies compared to me. So he is always maintaining the top position in his class, but as for me, I play a lot and I don't care about academics that much.

At the end of each session, Dad will reward my brother and my sister with a gift he promised them last session and ask them to make a choice of something they want for the next term if they maintain their position. I didn’t care much until one day my brother requested a bicycle, and Dad said yes. My head exploded.

The bicycle became my driving force. I felt I also needed one. But I had to come first in my class which was almost impossible. I tried to focus more on my studies and improved academically. Gradually I improved and also became a part of the best students in the class.

That’s healthy competition, there was a time in my second year in the higher institutions when I got into a competition with my roommate who happens to be in the same faculty. I knew he was a scholar in his academics, he was gifted and also strived to be better himself. I asked for a competition on who would finish reading some textbooks and answer questions correctly from their opponents.

When we were done reading, I asked him all of my questions and he answered all correctly. But he only asked me three and I could answer one on average. He didn’t read any textbooks when I was seriously concentrating on mine. He already understood almost everything in it.

In the end, I realized that he is not someone I am to compete with, but someone I should learn from. Ever since then I succumbed and lowered myself to learn more from him. If I were to be adamant on winning him then it's no more healthy for me. Because I would actually get jealous or envious of him and want to supersede him by all means possible which will surely get me out of track.

Almost every toxic competition we see starts healthy. But if the competitors don't know when to accept defeat then it will surely become toxic in the end. There are some people we don't have to compete with. We just have to look up to them and try to be like them.

When competition goes wrong. Then the best advice is to sit down and find your path where you are good at and can deliver the best. That is one way to overcome toxic competition and get yourself into healthier ones that will grant you progress in whatever you do.

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This is my response to the HIVE LEARNERS weekly prompt in the hive-learners community for the Week 171 Edition 1, and the topic to be discussed is HEALTHY COMPETITION.

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