Are you competing with yourself or with others?

Marina: I realize that people compete almost in every area of their lives. They compete at home and at work. People practice sports to develop a strong character. It seems that they do so for at least two reasons: it allows them to satisfy the need to win and it provides the motivation for improving their performance. What else does winning mean to people?

Micheline: The nature of any activity goes along with satisfaction. If there is emptiness, only competition will raise. The key issue here is that most people tend to get satisfaction from outside. When competing with others, we compare processes and results. We criticize our adversaries and ourselves as well. We judge continuously. Sure, external satisfaction drives our energy in a quite wrong way and does not stay long with us.  Winning through competition brings small rewards and requires external praise. Just imagine that a person cannot be happy until his next victory or the next person who will (or may) praise him.

Marina: So, the idea here is to know how to make rewards everlasting and avoid being dependent on external praise only.  And there are some tools for that.

Micheline: You will gain incredible results if you learn how to get satisfaction from within. This is how it works.  Competing with yourself and improving one step at a time even at a little pace, you will always remain satisfied.  Even if you did not get better today than yesterday, it won’t hurt anybody.  Moreover, your gladness and proudness will be doubled if besides winning in a race, you also won over your bad habits. On top of that, you will still remain satisfied, when losing in a competition, because you mostly focus on winning over yourself.

Also, it causes less stress to compete with yourself, because you adjust easily. You can choose if you compete or you stop it.  It is up to you to decide how you compete. What happens in a situation of injury? What feelings will flood a person when physical capacities are not there anymore? A person can still be involved in his favorite activity by sharing his experience and knowledge with an apprentice.

Marina: Oh, I see, you mean that the consequence of competing is simply copying without learning. Sincere and true joy comes with the integration of the self. Doubtless, the highest point of integration is manifested by our ability to elaborate knowledge. Just looking outside makes us bored.  This is a very descriptive example of how and why cooperating and sharing with others is preferential compared to taking from others.  I guess Olympic game champions do exactly this. It is a recipe for a transformation.

Micheline:Yes, everything should come from the self.  Competition results in losing energy, as this process mostly comes from the brain – we analyze and try to find defaults. Acting this way, we take energy and power from others.

Instead, improvement should become more of a focus. This way energy always spreads and goes towards others.

Marina:  I guess that the outcome of competing with the self will influence the external world on a collaborative base. You will be growing into a leader, and people will follow you. During your performance you will be playing at your highest capacity, adjusting and sequencing. There are lots of types of sports. All in all, sports unite more than they divide. Winning happens by addition, not division. In any kind of sports, we first learn to win over the self. There is a saying: Flows of energy can open your third breath.

Micheline: Flows of energy if coming from within will open your third eye or your consciousness if you will, as developing your inner capacities will guarantee a success even greater than you can imagine.

It is very challenging to compete with the self. But it is the best way to go.

This article is co-authored with Micheline Tanguay, a spiritual mentor.

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