Am I the Drama?

Constant competition confuses me. I believe that I am a highly self-competitive person, meaning that I get a lot of joy and motivation from beating myself if I’m trying to get better at a certain skill like riding a bike well or baking or meditating or running. Beating yesterday Mary at tangible stuff I can improve upon is definitely something I understand. I have difficulty, though, understanding competing with other people, particularly every day and particularly in activities either involving luck or inherent levels of inequity in performance capabilities. 

Running is an activity I’ve spent a great deal of time and energy trying to improve upon the past four years. When I was running six days a week, I tried to beat yesterday Mary a lot because I took improvement as a measure of how well I was running. During that time, I never tried to beat anyone else’s times or stats that I knew because I could see what they were doing on Strava or whatever. Most of the people I follow on exercise apps are faster and stronger than me to begin with so that would be a lopsided competition anyway, but to a greater degree, what’s the point against competing against another person on any sort of continual basis? With running, I don’t understand the point of competition anyway unless it’s a race and unless you only take the result for what it is, the person who won performed better on that day under those circumstances with whatever training they had at that point. I get the rush of winning when you know you and your competition are fairly evenly matched based on your training and experience. I see the motivation you get to push yourself at the end when you know you could win by a hundredth of a second. That makes sense to me in any sort of sport. The winner clearly was superior in how they performed on that day, under those circumstances, with whatever training they had.

I’m having the most difficulty understanding what motivates people to turn activities into competitions in the first place. Outside of sports or board games where in that moment there is a clear winner or loser, what do we get out of competing against other people? Do we want to feel superior to other people? Do we feel like people will accept us more if we are good at something by whatever measure is good for that activity? Do we like being a part of a shared experience with other people that gives us a sense of belonging? (That’s the explanation my husband has because he tends to approach any topic I bring up from a nuanced, well-reasoned, kind perspective and he’s usually if not all the way right at least partially right and if nothing else always open to a long talk about literally whatever because he’s the actual best. He’s worth the run on sentence.) 

Anywho, I’m confused. Which brings me to, am I the drama? Over the past two years, I’ve analyzed a lot of the reasons why I do certain things. My ability to reflect and many times overthink does hopefully make me more self aware and certainly more intentional about how I move throughout the world. I looked at what I chose to post on social media and my intentions behind it. I realized that there were times when I was putting stuff out because I wanted people to like it and think that was a cool thing I was doing like with baking or running really far for me. I definitely still do that and for the most part find it to be innocuous. I hope I’m right on that one. Jury is truly still out there. Other times, I posted information that I felt was helpful to share with other people because I felt I provided a unique perspective or one that could be educational in some way. I still think that stuff is appropriate but only if I am entirely open to being told I’m wrong and being open to discussion on the subject. What is the point of posting something on social media if you aren’t fully open to the social aspect of it anyway? If we are just looking for people to agree with us wholly all the time, the only person we should discuss issues with is ourselves.

What I found problematic was any time I would put something out in the world because I wanted people to like me because of it. Not the thing I was doing or the words I was saying that hopefully made sense, but me. Anytime we care about being seen as anything other than a kind, respectful, decent person who is dong their best on a given day, we miss the mark. I’ve for sure missed that mark before. It’s the reason I cringe when anyone tells me they are jealous of some experience I had or something I own. I don’t want you to be jealous. If you want the thing I have, go get it. I’m not special. I might have access to something that you currently do not have access to, but that’s not a value judgment about you. I’ve come to the conclusion as of now that as long as my intentions are kind, respectful, and decent, and that I’m open to being corrected when I miss the mark, I’m doing alright. That doesn’t seem to stop me, though, from getting infuriated (strong word but also true here) when I see people telling other people they are jealous of them. Jealous of what? That person chose to go on a vacation to somewhere, or buy something, or eat whatever. In what world do you need to feel jealous of the thing they have? If you have access to whatever they have, go get it for yourself, and if you don’t currently have access but could work to get it if you really want it, why not just go do that? What do you get out of saying you’re “so jealous’’? And, did they tell the world about this thing in hopes that someone would say they are “so jealous”?

I know I have posted many somethings at some point on the internet because I wanted to people to think I was doing something special. I try my hardest not to do that any more but all any of us can do is try. I’m most upset about this because I’m worried that we care too much what other people think about us. What value judgments people make about us either because of what we post on the internet or what the way that we present ourselves in person (although my focus currently is on the internet aspect because I haven’t really seen people for actual stretches of time in awhile. Omicron is still running the streets so I’m gonna let him do his thing.) Why do we care so much? 

I have more questions than answers and concerns about putting this out when I haven’t fully unpacked it, but I’m curious. Why do we turn activities or life events into competitions? Is it harming us or is it on the whole alright? Also yes, I started writing this because I was mad people were posting their Wordle scores. Please let me know if you have answers or want to discuss any of the further. I’m genuinely curious and want to know your thoughts. Happy Saturday!