The Balancing Act of Competitiveness

Read Time: 7 minutes

Labradford Smith once scored 37 points while being guarded by Michael Jordan.  After the game, Jordan claimed that Smith then sarcastically said to him, “Nice game, Mike.”  Furious, Jordan vowed to drop 37 in the first half the next time he played Smith’s Bullets.  Jordan came close, scoring 36 in the first half (an absurd number) and finishing with 47 points as Jordan’s Bulls blew out Smith’s Bullets.

 

The kicker?  Smith never said anything snarky to Jordan.  Jordan later admitted that he completely made Smith’s comment up to motivate himself.

 

On one hand, it worked.  Jordan gained extra motivation, and dominated a level above even his norm.

 

On the other hand, HOLY SHIT WHAT AN ABSOLUTE FUCKING LUNATIC.  I mean really think about what happened there.

 

Jordan would get no more motivation by just telling reporters Smith made that comment.  In order to gain extra motivation, Jordan had to convince himfuckingself that a dude just said something that Jordan consciously knows the dude didn’t say.  He had to invent a part of reality out of thin air, and then fully believe it.  The little voice in his head saying, “Yeah but Mike, that didn’t actually happen,”–the voice connected to reality–had to be completely shut off to the point where Jordan got angry about it happening.

 

So my central question is this: Is that…good?

Is being competitive always a positive thing no matter what you become as a result?  Is having the will to win to the point of basically having a personality disorder ultimately beneficial?

 

If you idolize Michael Jordan, your response to that might be, “Yeah!  Having an indomitable competitive spirit will push you to new heights!  It will make you the greatest you can possibly be.  It is the ultimate driving force of human progress! Only true champions flip over the Monopoly board when they’re about to lose!”

 

If you’re trying to have game night at your place, and fucking Frank is coming over, your response will probably be, “Well no.  Competitive people are the worst, and I hope Frank crashes on the drive over here.”

 

In different contexts, both of these perspectives are valid.  A competitive drive pushes you more than you otherwise would be pushed, but it can also spin out of control, blind you to reality, and as a result, make you a delusional, tunnel-visioned, insufferable prick.

 

So let’s try to parse out this balancing act of competitiveness by first asking ourselves where this comes from, or…

 

Why Are We Like This?

 

The human urge to be competitive is one of the most weirdly primal things that we still fully function with in everyday life.  Deep down in our animal brains, we feel strong urges to show pretty people our genitals, to inhale McMuffins, and to fucking dominate our sister-in-law at Yahtzee.  It’s all very weird, and irrational, and real, and carnal. Two guys arguing over who can throw a football farther, and then going outside to compare is some real grunting apes shit.

 

 

Competitiveness was very useful in caveman days when resources were scarce, and killing more rats with your fists than your cave-neighbor meant your family got to eat more than his, and thus was more likely to survive.  In those days, not being competitive killed you. You needed everything possible to push you towards survival, and arbitrarily wanting to be better than others helped with that.

 

So this same urge is still within us, but instead of matters of survival, now we become competitive over a basketball game, or over who has the hotter wife, or who is the hotter wife, or over who has the prettier German sedan, or more Instagram followers, or who can win a thumb-wrestling match in front of a group of girls.

 

All of these things are still–deep in our subconscious minds–about being better suited for survival (because we’re, you know, complete and total idiots) and that’s why our competitive drive can be so strong.

 

So Why Is This Bad?

 

Michael Jordan routinely belittled and insulted his teammates.  Whereas every other Hall of Fame speech is gracious and humble, Jordan’s was a giant ego jerkoff session filled with one story after another of, “You doubted me, and that motivated me, so I destroyed you, lol.”  He once cheated at a no-stakes game of cards against his friend’s mom. He’s totally that guy at game night.

 

And it’s worth asking before you emulate him, and try to lean into your “will to win,” and convince yourself that the Labradford Smith in your life has doubted you…do you really want to be that asshole?  Is that worth it for you?

 

You could argue that it was worth it for him, but before you try to transpose that onto yourself, keep in mind you don’t have a 40-inch vertical and other-worldly coordination, so you’re not likely to get 6 rings, GOAT status, and literally a billion fucking dollars being like Mike.  You’re just more likely to have no friends.

 

 

 

This doesn’t just make you annoying to be around.  People who are driven to be the best can get tunnel vision, and as a result, often tend to step on the world around them in the process of building it.

 

It’s highly competitive people who push their businesses to success until they destroy the environment, or turn to sweatshops, or cause entire economies to collapse.  That all comes from cavemen hoarding berries and bearskins. That doesn’t come from a rational desire for seventh mansion.  It comes from a powerful guttural urge to want to achieve more, and have more than others.

 

When your barbaric competitive brain takes over, you make decisions purely on reaching higher, and you don’t see the awful shit you might be doing in the process because after all, the goal isn’t to “do the right thing,” or “not accidentally drown an African village in petroleum.”  It’s to win.

What’s Good About Being Competitive?

 

On the other hand, people with that carnal competitive drive have accomplished a lot of what you see around you in the world.  The world is built by driven people, and the need to be the best can drive the hell out of people.

 

Casual billionaires and lazy superstars are few and far between because achieving, at a certain point, gets stupid.  Once you have a certain amount, a very legitimate question becomes “Why are you still doing this?” and the only real response is to say, “Because for some reason, I need to be better than Wanda.”

 

So is it good to lean into that?  Well maybe.

 

Ideally you wouldn’t need to.  Ideally, instead of obsessively trying to follow your dreams because your ex has been successful and you hate them for it and need to beat them, you could just obsessively follow your dreams because, you know, you want ‘em.

 

That way when you do accomplish the thing you want, you can be like, “Yay, I have the thing I want!  That will be an asset towards my life from now on, and my existence will be better as a result!”

 

 

If your main motivation is competition, then you’re more likely to be like, “Yay!  I beat Darryl at this one thing! Now I’ll feel superior for five seconds until the feeling wears off, and then I’ll be unhappy until I can somehow win again!  What a dipshit I am!”

 

So it would seem better to block out your competitive drive as much as possible.  But of course, here’s the rub: very often, you don’t get what you want without the competitive drive.  When it’s your, “I would like to own a two-story house” vs. “I need to get a two-story house before my brother-in-law so that he can eat shit and hate himself,” the latter often motivates you more effectively.  You need some dose of the caveman motivation to get the real thing, even at the cost of your own sanity.

 

So how do we avoid that?  How do we use the caveman competitive drive while maintaining our sanity, our happiness, and our modern world decency?  How do we become high-achieving people without also becoming the people who hurl game controllers, say that a game of poker we lost is “fucking bullshit,” and pay Bangladeshi kids $.02 an hour to build what is essentially your 5th yacht (because Steve has 4 yachts and fuck Steve).

 

How do we conduct the balancing act of the human competitive spirit?

 

As I see it, there are two basic rules to this:

1. Only Be Competitive at Things That Aren’t Stupid

 

Competitiveness mostly manifests itself in how much you focus, and how much you continue to push yourself when you no longer feel like pushing yourself.  You can choose when to deploy this by how you prioritize what you’re doing.

 

 

So the idea is this: before you unleash the competitive spirit, you first have to rationally acknowledge that there is a legitimate reason to care about winning what you’re doing.

 

So in other words, if the thing you’re doing has to do with your job in some way, it’s generally good to let your competitive drive take over.  If it’s playing dominoes with your grandpa, maybe make the conscious decision to chill the fuck out, you weirdo.  Nothing matters less than who wins that.

 

Michael Jordan forcing a delusion into his brain so that he could hatefuck Lebradford Smith into an early retirement was psychopathic, but ultimately for the best, because his goal was to be the best player he could be.

 

Jordan cheating at a no-stakes card game against his friend’s mom is just fucking annoying.  Like what an absolute dork.

 

You aren’t playing that game (or the game to get more Instagram likes, or maternal approval) to win.  That’s not the inherent purpose of it. The purpose of most games in life is to have fun, and you being a super serious cheating killjoy defeats that purpose.  Learn when to delineate and when to deploy your pscyhopath by first acknowledging the relative importance of your actions, and you’re on the right track to being more happy, and having your friends hate you less.

 

2) Your rational brain decides.  Your competitive monkey brain executes.

 

In other words, don’t use your competitive brain to decide whether to treat your employees like shit, or whether you should go Tanya Harding on your opponent’s knee when the ref isn’t looking, or whether you should buy more followers to surpass your ex’s new girlfriend, you unbelievable loser.  The competitive brain will be wrong in all of those situations.

 

Make decisions with your rational, civilized, human brain.  Deduce what would be the best decision for all involved, and then execute the decision with your competitive brain.  Allow it to push you to make an even greater effort at all times when a greater effort and focus is called for.  Become that hyper-focused caveman when doing so wouldn’t make you a douche.

 

You don’t have to shut the monkey in your brain down.  You just have to control it. You can tell it when to eat a gallon of sugar, when to fuck like animals, when to obsess over the win column, and perhaps most importantly, when to stop being a stupid idiot.

 

So stay conscious of your decisions, unleash the animal when the animal is useful, and don’t be a dick to your friend’s mom.