JONGSON PARK

Don’t be defined by the “wins” the “losses”. It shouldn’t be a pursuit of being better than the person next to you. Don’t feel less than someone who is “better” at something than you. All those things are fear-based.

Identity isn’t in the competition, winning or losing. It should be the pursuit of mastery, the artistry of craftsmanship that should be the fulfillment and the reward in itself.

Being able to help and make the people around you better, improve and progress is exponentially better and more fruitful than only bettering yourself. But competition is the lowest common denominator that is able to engage a group in the forward pursuit, instead of the harder, more difficult method of teaching and learning a pathway toward progression, improvement and mastery.

Competition can bring out the best but also gives room to bring out the worst. Competition pushes boundaries, continually progressing our medical and technology forward. We see in athletic competition, people doing things we’ve never seen before, faced against adversity and challenges. Competition funnels the best doctors to the top, to the best schools, best hospitals and most difficult cases.

But competition can also bring out the worst, cutthroat, win-at-all-costs mentality, toxic competitiveness, cheating, playing the political angle instead of doing what’s right, a separation of the “winners” and “losers”, producing the perception and/or reality of an unfair paradigm – the cards are “stacked” against the losers and can never be winners.

Is the answer eliminate competition? Conform people, society, a species to abandon an evolutionary survival instinct. Competition that exists all throughout nature, plants and animals.

I think the answer, the real difficult challenge, is taking part in the competition, but not being defined by the competition. Not being defined by the status of “winner” or “loser” not being driven or motivated by the status but performing the action to be present, engaged and open at what you’re doing, which will only get you better at what you do.

Not being defined by the competition is not being defined by the “wins” and “losses”, you are where you are in the progress of improvement and progression, understanding the wins and losses are just “mile markers”. No one ever went undefeated, ever.

As a child I didn’t like competition. I didn’t like how it made people feel less than and others feel better than. And I hated that it also becomes one of the motivating factors – wanting to feel better than and not wanting to feel less than. And then it’s reinforced by all the systems and perception around us. School, grades and rising to the top or falling to the bottom. Sports, “winners” and “losers”. Contests, notoriety and achievements. Jobs, promotions and raises. And then this drive, motivation and ambition becomes an identity.

It’s a self-fulfilling loop. The system and perception of others defining who are the “winners” and “losers” and the individual buying into that perception, seeing themselves as a “winner” or “loser”. Seeing the world through that paradigm, if they’re a winner, someone else is a loser. If they’re a loser, someone else is a winner.

Ambition, motivation, drive, will-power isn’t just about achieving ultra-success. Maybe it’s about getting an education, health & fitness, working on temperament, addiction, habits, relationships, self-improvement. Everyone has that thing they want to work on, it isn’t all about the drive for success and money. But it’s that one thing that will require all the force, strength and grit to overcome and persevere. That’s needed, that will test them, that will seem impossible, and will be some of the hardest things they’ve ever done.

Listening to a recent conversation about capitalism and the people that get left behind in this type of framework. The question arises, what about compassion, where is compassion for the people that can’t survive or thrive under this “do or die” economics. The crux of the argument turns toward the belief in the individual, the belief in the human spirit. That an individual in the most, challenging, oppressive and impossible circumstances can persevere, overcome and succeed, with hard work, determination and belief. The opposing argument is that not everyone has the capacity to overcome those circumstances, to have either the intelligence, capacity, ability, potential or will-power to overcome and persevere.

The question is does this framework only reward those that have that “will-power” and inherently produce those that will be “left behind”. It is a very individualistic endeavor to try and better yourself, to strive for more, rise up out of your given circumstances. There are a lot of outside forces and influences that will try and keep you down where you “belong”. You’ll be lucky to have a rare few people believe in you, if any. It’s a very lonely process, if you’re the first to try and the people around you don’t know how to get to where you want to go, all you’ll have to get through it is your guts and stubborn persistence. You’ll have to go against and break everyone’s expectations and perceptions. It’s that grind, that mindset that many “successful” people have that gets them out of their situations.

And it’s that mindset that also produces the belief, “If I can do it, anyone can do it”, that it doesn’t require a special person or some special ability and talent that it’s based on a very simple decision but very difficult to carry out and sustain. But it’s the freedom to make that decision, that anything is possible that empowers that decision.

But this mindset can create alienation from those that haven’t made the decision to “better” their situation, when they think too highly of their own abilities and what they’ve accomplished. But it can and should create more sympathy and compassion and understanding of how difficult it is, for all the dominoes to fall into place for the decision, experience, knowledge, ability, people, circumstance and even luck to create, generate and push forward the upward momentum.

It’s the ambition that drives the individualist out of whatever difficult circumstance they’re in, to go to college, own a small business or get a professional career. But the ambition should serve and be done for the sake of compassion, sympathy and understanding. That is really the only way both can be in service to and coexist with each other.