Can You be Too Competitive?
Written by Rev. Dr. Scott Paczkowski
“Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. ”
I was raised to be competitive. I was in sports from an early age. I loved competing in different sports. While I wasn’t a great athlete, the drive to compete was hardwired into my being. Competing was fun. The competition was expected whether on the basketball or tennis court, on the track, or in speech and drama. Many believe that encouraging and teaching competition is necessary to raise a child into a successful adult.
Competition can be beneficial. It teaches rules, discipline, teamwork, and striving toward a common goal. But like most issues in life, too much of a good thing can quickly become a negative. Being competitive can be like a drug. You age out of being at the top of your game at an early age in most sports. But the competitive drive can be a drug that one can find hard to ignore. Many gambling addicts are seeking to fill the competitive void. Unfortunately, those that cannot turn off the competitive edge often alienate people and end up alone.
John Briley, in his Washington Post article, “Yes, you can be too competitive. Here’s why, and how to stop,” points out, “a study published in 2011 in the journal Psychology found that hypercompetitive individuals-those who have a need to win at all cost-were more impatient and irritable than their less-competitive counterparts and had higher self-reported health problems, including heart disease.” This study began with 1994 research, “that found hypercompetitive people to be highly narcissistic fand to have lower self-esteem and higher rates of anxiety and depression than others.” So it should not be surprising that as we raise this generation of children to be more competitive through youth sports and less involved in church activities, there is a significant rise in childhood anxiety and depression.
The adverse effects of being too competitive are too vast to be thoroughly vetted in a daily devotional. Other long-term issues continue to alienate the overly competitive from the rest of society. Today, pray for the divine wisdom necessary to know when your competitive spirit moves from productive to alienating. God wants us to be compassionate and open to others; we cannot do that if our prime inner directive is to beat everyone else into submission. Watch how you respond in situations, especially those that shouldn’t be competitive, like driving down the highway, and see how you respond.
