Watched a Hong Kong drama. Kinda feel sad for the guy who tries to force another to compete with him to determine the best player. Which led me to think: What is the point of competition? When can we tell that it has gone too far?
I supposed you can say competition is the order of nature. Natural selection functions via competition. I feel that humans are the ultimate competitors. Ever since the day a human is born, you can expect some parents from someone will start pitting your children against others. When children mature, they will pit themselves against their peers. When they finally have their own children, they will pit their children against others. It is a never-ending cycle.
What is the point of competition? To prove you are better than others. To feel the thrill of competition. To make your "stake-holders" happy. I fully agree with all, the first two in particular (personally experienced them). However, the point of competition is actually to find your weaknesses and overcome them.
Victory against someone or something is simply a temporary state, with many qualifiers. Everyone can improve and in competitions, many factors can magnify the difference between two players. The topics that come out in exams, the wind condition, a careless error of judgement in hitting a ball. All these depend on luck. Beating your opponents because of these factors hardly proves that you are better. I think whether win or lose, your biggest gain should be the knowledge of your strengths and weaknesses and what you can do to improve yourself. The great sensation of winning is simply a reward for your past hard work and should not be the ultimate aim of winning. After all, beating someone may not prove anything at all. The factor separate the two may just be luck. No competition can ensure that all players are at their peak, compete under the same conditions, use the same equipment, enjoy the same level of training. No competition is completely fair. Therefore, the results of competition may be significant, if at all. But through a competition, you can surely sense your strengths and weaknesses. You can analyze "match" and decide what is your strength. Weaknesses are more easily felt. Competition lets you acutely sense your weaknesses and generates a sense of urgency to overcomes them. How can you forget the feeling losing to someone due to your weakness? While everyone cheer the victor, it is actually the loser who potentially stands to gain more. Make no mistake about this.
When someone becomes obsessed with beating someone or obsessed with challenging others to determine who is better, they have gone too far. When you win, you should feel happy and proud because you deserved it or because of your exceptional good luck or because you overcome your obstacles. Like I stated previously, the ultimate goal of competition should not simply be victory against someone - it should be a process of discovering where you can improve. I now believe challenging someone just to prove who is stronger is a waste of time but challenging someone to further improve yourself is the true purpose of competition.
You can get carried away at the moment but never forget the true purpose of competition. In addition, there is no perpetual winner or loser and there is absolute no competition that is 100% fair. To be competitive simply to prove you are the best is kidding yourself. A competition is meant to enable you to assess yourself.
