I have a confession to make:
I LOVE TO COMPETE.
Let me explain why by first taking a look at the definition of the word...
Merriam-Webster defines the word compete as:
"to strive consciously or unconsciously for an objective (such as position, profit, or a prize)".
I believe that this is what most people mean when they use the word but I think that today's definition is missing something.
Let's go back a few hundred years and take a look at the origin of the word.
"To compete", comes from the Latin, competere, which is made up of into two shorter Latin words; com meaning "with, together" and petere meaning "to strive, or seek”.
So when we put those two back together we get the original (Latin) definition of the word compete, which is: “to strive for or seek together (with someone)”.
That is very different than how most people use it today. While today's definition is very externally focused, ("for position, profit, or a prize"), the origin of the word strikes me far more internally driven.
When we compete, when we "seek together" with an opponent, we are striving to take our game to a higher level, possibly a level which we have never reached before, a level which we most likely could only attain when pushed there by an equally matched adversary.
And that is why I love to compete.
Embrace competition. Use it to seek the best in yourself...It may be the only way to bring it out of you.
RSS Feed