Competition

Photographed by Rachel Waters

Human life.

Duration: momentary. Nature: changeable. Perception: dim. Condition of body: decaying. Soul: spinning around. Fortune: unpredictable. Lasting Fame: uncertain. Sum Up: The body and its parts are a river, the soul a dream and mist, life is warfare and a journey far from home, lasting reputation is oblivion.

Then what can guide us?

Only philosophy.

– Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 2.17

Competition is part of human nature. Don’t I know it. I grew up playing basketball and still try to play as often as I can. When I’m on the court and losing I get so frustrated that I often curse at myself. It looks about as healthy as it sounds. But I want to win. More than anything, I want to be good – better than that, I want to be great. I want to be like Michael Jordan, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Kobe Bryant, or Lebron James. I want to crush my opponents through my superior skill and hear the lamentations of their women, as Arnold Swatzeneger said while playing Conan. But that doesn’t happen. I’m 5’9”, maybe 5’10” if I’ve been stretching my back or when I was on dating apps (before I was married), so I am rarely the best player on the court and basketball is a humbling hobby. There’s nothing quite as infuriating as having a shot blocked or the ball stolen from you.

Writing is also humbling. One second you’ve written something you think will be engaging and fun for readers and the next moment you’re rereading your work feeling that a child could have done better. If you’re unpublished like me, the question of “why do you keep doing it?” raises its ugly head more often than is probably healthy. I think to a certain degree, people engaged in creative acts are always battling the urge to quit. If quitting is the true failure, then to succeed we must develop mental defenses against such intrusive thoughts. Just as the athlete must lace up their shoes and get back to work, so must we pick up the pen.

Some may argue that competition inspires greatness. The challenge of exceeding what others have accomplished can act as an incentive to push our creative limits. In most cases, though, this energy of competition oscillates at a lower vibration.

Wanting to outperform another artist or make a work better than theirs rarely results in true greatness. Nor is it a mindset that has a healthy impact on the rest of our lives. As Theodore Roosevelt pointed out, comparison is the thief of joy. Besides, why would we want to create with the purpose of diminishing someone else? – Rick Rubin, The Creative Act, 237-238.

When you want to be a writer, do as writers do – so I joined a writing group. This diverse band of people welcomed me in, albeit after a harsh (but needed) critique of my writing. Over the months they became my writing family. A couple folks were published or self-published authors, but the great majority of us were aspiring authors. I, of course, wanted to be the best writer there – a toxic desire. 

Then one meeting a buddy of mine in the group mentioned that an agent had reached out to him. I had never had an agent or publisher give me the light of day. I immediately spiraled into a state of envy. How could he get so much attention? What did they see in his writing that they didn’t in mine? I feigned happiness for him. 

That night I laid awake in bed reliving the experience. More than anything, I was frustrated with my emotions. My competitive nature, my dreams, my goals, all of it conspired to make myself feel hurt and to not join in the accomplishments of a friend. I had felt a natural and human response, but deep down I knew it was not the response that I needed to feel. A success for my friend is a success for the entire writing community – my local writing community. 

The way people behave. They refuse to admire their contemporaries, the people whose lives they share. No, but to be admired by Posterity – people they’ve never met and never will – that’s what they set their hearts on. You might as well be upset at not being a hero to your great-grandfather. – Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 6.18

So how to reframe my mindset? I started with the advice: “writing is a business of relationships.” My relationships were a couple of self-published and published authors and a bunch of aspiring authors like myself. Imagine a world in which my friend had retained the agent. I would have known an agented author. That relationship might come with benefits. Maybe my friend would have connected me with that agent for a coffee or virtual meeting. What could I have learned? How might I have improved? Who else might my published friend introduce me to? 

My perspective on my writing group changed when I realized that their success was also my success. Their achievements might translate into opportunities for myself. To put it another way, would you rather be in a writing group with a bunch of aspiring authors or one with Stephen King and Brandon Sanderson? I think the majority of readers would agree that the information, the connections, the knowledge needed to publish would be far greater in the writing group with King and Sanderson. So why be envious when someone around you accomplishes something? Be happy for them and support them, as their success is your success.

I always played team sports, but from a philosophical standpoint, one of my favorite athletic competitions is long distance running. While the mental fortitude required for a runner to complete a race is staggering and something that most people could learn from, what interests me the most is the concept of a personal best. Runners are not necessarily trying to come in first. The real race is with themselves in an attempt to reach the finish line faster than their personal best. This is a philosophy that we should all be striving for. I am not competing against my fellow writer, I am instead competing against myself. 

Beautiful things of any kind are beautiful in themselves and sufficient to themselves. Praise is extraneous. The object of praise remains what it was – no better or worse. – Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 4.20

Am I writing something better than yesterday? How am I using my time to be better at my craft? Am I developing better processes to reach the finish line within the timeline I set for myself? These are the true things that we are competing against. Ultimately, we are competing against the intrusive thoughts, that idea that maybe we aren’t good enough, maybe we should quit – we compete only against failure itself. So sit down at your desk with your pen, or fire up your word processor, or even grab a book to study, because every time you do, you are winning the race against failure.

Take the shortest route, the one that nature planned – to speak and act in the healthiest way. Do that, and be free of pain and stress, free of all calculations and pretension. – Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 4.51