Is Competition a Friend or an Enemy in the Battle for Survival?

Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale, play as magicians Robert Angier and Alfred Borden, in Christopher Nolan's The Prestige. In the beginning, they are two young men who aspire to be successful in the magic industry. However, after an awful event, they start to hate one another. They both develop an intense obsession with one another as a result of this cruel rivalry. What is the other person's secret? What is their trick? Is it possible to surpass it? Neither of them was able to recover well from this obsession.

The Competition and You

Two of the most popular pieces of advice regarding competition are "compete with your past self" and "competition is for losers." While they sound fantastic, they aren't always very useful. Your ultimate objective is to escape the rat race and establish a monopoly. That's the main idea behind the first advice. That is to say, don't play games made by other people. Take a different approach. Make a game of your own. Although this is good guidance, there are situations in which you cannot make your own regulations, particularly if your only goal is to advance prior your rival friend.

The growth mindset is the subject of the second advice. It can be stressful and actually worse for us to compete with others. Rather, we need to evaluate our progress by comparing our current selves to our previous selves. We will undoubtedly feel accomplished after doing it. We should also evaluate ourselves in light of our ideal future selves. We'll have a purpose because of this. But it is not how humans are wired. We are social creatures. We enjoy giving to the less fortunate, but we also enjoy competing and succeeding.

When Is Your Enough?

Our ability to measure ourselves against others is facilitated by competition. It indicates our position in the world and the distance between us and people who are similar to us. This spirit of competition serves as a stressor, pushing companies to innovate, athletes to set new standards and investors to increase profits. Competition is what drives human progress. However, excessive stress is harmful. While competition allows us to compare ourselves to others, if we only evaluate our achievements, wealth, status, or career in relation to other people, we will always feel insufficient, useless and poor.

Short-term stressors are generally more beneficial to humans than long-term ones. Excessive rivalry leads to a lifelong obsession, a plot point that is strikingly similar to The Prestige. Nothing ever works out well in the end. There will always be someone more intelligent, fortunate, well-liked, or attractive than you. Nothing you do will ever feel that great if the only standard by which you judge yourself is comparison to others. Depression that lasts a long time is caused by obsession. Competitiveness is necessary, but only in balance. If we have too little, we get floppy. When we have too much, we don't feel content or happy.

Don't Get Controlled by the Feeling of FOMO

Opportunity should drive us, not fear of missing out. It's reasonable to be motivated to change the system to your advantage when a colleague receives a promotion they don't deserve, but it would be silly to focus too much on receiving the same outcome. It helps to have an internal yardstick in situations like this. Measuring yourself by your own standards gives you advice on what to do, while measuring yourself by the standards of the outside world tells you where you stand.

Is that promotion something you truly need, or are you just pursuing it because a colleague received it? What is the cost associated with that? Is it truly worthwhile to put in 100 hours a week and maximize every opportunity for career advancement? You really don't need to do anything if you are living up to your own expectations, even if those around you are getting richer or more successful.

Bitter Sweet Outcome Will Never Be Sweet

Robert Angier and Alfred Borden had opposite views in The Prestige. Borden was a craftsman and Angier was a showman. They had lots of chances to compete and share knowledge. However, their only obsession was defeating the other. There was intense rivalry instead of an internal standard. FOMO blinds someone whose sense of competition has gone into overdrive. They don't have the lateral perspective needed to see the wider picture and formulate wise decisions. No matter how talented or successful they are, it will never be sufficient.

In conclusion, we are born with a competitive spirit but it is a two-edged sword, though. Excessive exposure to it can be harmful even if it can aid in our growth. It's a natural inclination. It cannot be our only source of decision-making authority. We must measure it internally against the human supervision that is required for controlling the animal within us.