Sunday, May 31, 2009

Competitive Much?!

For as long as I can remember, I've always been SUPER competitive. I blame it on an entire childhood spent playing sports and the fact that I'm the youngest of four, but to be honest, it effects pretty much every area of my life. Recently, I've been trying to figure out appropriate situations to express my competitiveness...here's what I've come up with so far:

Good Times to be competitive:
  1. When sizing up strangers to see who I could defeat in a random (but necessary) street fight.
  2. When playing sports with other competitive people...not to be confused with playing sports with non-competitive people.
  3. When showing honor (as long as your motives are pure and you don't lose sight of the ultimate goal).
  4. While doing random things that don't matter (aka "who can finish washing their hands first", or "who can write the funniest thing on the birthday card", etc)
  5. When saying outrageous things in the appropriate context.
  6. When trying to get some much needed work done.
Bad Times to be competitive:
  1. When eating. This is a really bad habit to form! Ha.
  2. When playing sports with people who aren't competitive, or are just really bad.
  3. When saying outrageous things in INAPPROPRIATE situations (still working on this one).
  4. When no one else wants to compete.
  5. When doing something that no one else cares about (like writing a paper or doing office work).
Typically, when I'm competing with people, they are completely unaware. I will just have a running tally in my head of what's going on. But sometimes I compete without knowing it...Marie is pretty good about calling me out on this one. Ha.

So what are some other situations/times that make it ok (or inappropriate) to be competitive? I'd love to hear from some other people on this one...

2 comments:

Andrew said...

I think competitiveness is inappropriate any time it threatens to damage a personal relationship. I had a friend who I used to play in basketball. I'd beat him maybe 40% of the time. He'd throw a tantrum, get mad at me, pout, and generally just be a tool about it. I'd rather let someone win than have them be mad at me.

I like sports fine, and I enjoy participating when it comes up, but a lot of people take sports way too seriously. I've had people get mad at me in poker, basketball, video games, phase 10, canasta, taboo. I's absurd, childish, and very unsportsmanlike. People always forget that it is just a game.

Marie said...

I am probably only good at that because I am not competitive.

being competitive is not always a bad thing. I definitely think it is appropriate and inappropriate based on various situations, circumstances, importance levels and people involved.

being competitive with yourself also has so great advantages and disadvantages. it can motive and drive you to success, and also make you way too hard on yourself.

all in all, being competitive is somewhat complex. it has its time and place, that is for sure