Do you enjoy friendly competition?
Many of us do. Some say it brings out the best in us. Some thrive in an environment where other people push us to perform at higher and higher levels.
I can appreciate friendly competition like this. But I rarely see it.
And sometimes even friendly competition turns sour. Feelings get hurt. Tempers flare. The high level of energy surrounding competitive exchanges can often spill over into anger.
In Economics we talk about competition in markets, and often talk about ‘pure competition’ vs other types. In pure competition the conditions are perfect and the playing field is perfectly fair for all parties.
This rarely happens. This fairness.
It’s hard to separate our emotions from competitive interactions, and thus the ‘pureness’ falls short.
These are the types of competitions I have been privy to most often.
Most of the competition I have seen involves hurt feelings, anger, and even violence. That doesn’t sound very pure or perfect to me.
In my ecological endeavors I learned a lot about competition in nature and how the avoidance of competition leads to speciation. This is an amazing artifact of evolution and, in essence, controls biodiversity. The better we are at avoiding competition, the more species there will be. The more species there are, the more redundant and adaptive our species is. This ensures our persistence and stability in the face of an ever changing environment.
AVOIDANCE of competition. In fact, competition in nature is rare, despite what you might see on the National Geographic channel.
There are lots of other types of biological interactions that prevail. Like cooperation. Symbiosis. Even parasitism is more common than competition in nature.
Because competition only happens when resources are limiting.
Or in arenas, race tracks, and soccer fields across the world.
Think about how we interact. Think about how it makes you feel. Beyond a friendly game, what does competition really do for us?
Podcast audio download: https://pdcn.co/e/https://chtbl.com/track/CGDA9D/www.buzzsprout.com/530563/10521024-kew-episode-95-cooperation-vs-competition.mp3?download=true
YouTube video link: https://youtu.be/FW11jd1kH64