When my kids were growing up, I used to say this to them over and over:

“It’s not a contest”

If they were fighting with each other, if they were upset because some kid at school had something they didn’t have, if they weren’t the most popular or the best at something:

“It’s not a contest”

I said this to them over and over because I didn’t want them to live their lives always comparing themselves to others and hoping to figure out how to feel good in contrast to what others had or were. 

But let’s be honest, it feels impossible to exorcise this particular demon.  

I mean, our very basic evolutionary impulse tells us that it absolutely IS a contest.  There are resources out there and we want to compete to get them.   And even though the resources we compete for today may not be as tangible and survival-necessary as our predecessors, we’re still the same animals and our hard-wiring tells us it’s a contest. 

We have a primal drive to have the most resources.  The most money, the nicest house, the greatest vacations, the coolest car, the most enviable life. 

I want you to want what I have.  I want you to look at my life and think, “I want what she has” 

And when we can’t compete on that level, we might swing to the opposite extreme and work to have the least.  At least we can win at being the most frugal, the most minimalistic, the most simplistic and unattached. 

It IS a contest

We have a primal drive to be the best.  The best employee, the best mother, the best student, the best looking, the strongest, the thinnest, the smartest, the funniest, the healthiest, the most successful. 

And if not the best, then certainly better….. than someone.  So, we draw up sides and choose the side that we believe to be superior.  Morally, ethically, intellectually, spiritually. 

And… this is important … we almost always choose a side on which we think we have a chance of winning the contest. IF we are not that smart, we won’t choose the intellectual side. If we are not athletic, we won’t choose the physical side. If we are not rich and have no way to expect we will ever be so, we won’t choose the money side.

It IS a contest. 

It’s exhausting. 

Try as I might to get the contest demon out of my head.  I just cannot. 

Can you?

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