Competition Cancer

Some­one just sent a mes­sage to the TAGMAX list that real­ly hit me—I start­ed to write a reply and found that I could­n’t find much that’s pos­i­tive to say.

His son is obsessed with being “bet­ter than.” Instead of being hap­py about his accom­plish­ments, and rejoic­ing in the accom­plish­ments of those around him (like his sis­ter), he gets angry and needs to “beat” her in some sense. Rather than being hap­py with the fine vio­lin he has and plays very well, he’s angry because the piano his sis­ter plays is so much big­ger and costs more. It isn’t that he wants the piano—he wants her to not have it.

I see two oth­er boys—one grown now—in this father’s let­ter. I wish, so much, that I knew how to reach such a child, or what hap­pens to twist a per­son this way. I don’t, though. I was­n’t able to reach either of them, and I hon­est­ly can­not relate to them. They are shal­low and pride­ful and, hon­est­ly, incred­i­bly frag­ile. If anoth­er per­son­’s vic­to­ry has to mean your defeat, you have to con­stant­ly be on guard and push­ing high­er and high­er. You can­not be the best at every­thing. If you must be “the best” at any­thing, sta­tis­ti­cal­ly it is almost guar­an­teed that some­one in the world is actu­al­ly bet­ter at it than you are—so you can­not ever be happy.

We are not our abil­i­ties. We can­not base our self-esteem on things that are genet­ic acci­dents or hap­py results of our rear­ing. If that is all we are, then it’s hard­ly worth being proud of what was hand­ed to us, is it? We cer­tain­ly did­n’t do a damned thing to deserve or earn them. We did­n’t choose our ances­tors or the man­ner of our nurture.

What we do choose is our actions, our val­ues, how we use our abil­i­ties and advantages—or how we over­come any disadvantages.

The only com­peti­tor I acknowl­edge is me. If I can improve in some way, I win. Whether it’s learn­ing a new stitch, writ­ing a new essay, or singing a new song, I can be hap­py with what I’ve done. I can rejoice in oth­ers’ accom­plish­ments, admire them, enjoy them—and feel no need to dupli­cate or sur­pass them.

I can­not help but think that it is not pos­si­ble to love if you can­not rev­el in your loved one’s plea­sure. If you’re con­stant­ly com­pet­ing, you can­not love. In fact, I don’t think it’s pos­si­ble to love your­self in that kind of mindset.

I know that all three of the peo­ple I’ve seen with this sad out­look on life were told, con­stant­ly from a very young age, how very “gift­ed” they were. They were praised for their IQ test scores and, in two cas­es, were more high­ly prized by their par­ents than their “less­er” sib­lings (who might be gift­ed, but for what­ev­er rea­son weren’t cel­e­brat­ed by their par­ents in the same sense). In one, I know the issue was that the Gold­en Boy was a BOY, long-await­ed and val­ued above his sis­ters. In anoth­er case, the favored child is the eldest and has an emo­tion­al­ly inces­tu­ous rela­tion­ship with his moth­er, who lives through him. His gifts are more sim­i­lar to those of his moth­er than his sis­ter’s are, and there­fore he is more impor­tant to the mother.

I know that there is noth­ing inher­ent­ly dam­ag­ing about chil­dren know­ing that they are intel­li­gent and do well on cer­tain kinds of tests from an ear­ly age. It does­n’t auto­mat­i­cal­ly lead to com­pe­ti­tion can­cer. Is it being ranked high­er than sib­lings by par­ents? If a par­ent real­izes that it’s hap­pened, is there a way to repair the damage?