Why am I writing about, of all things, competition. The idea for this article arose when I was reading a Wikipedia (I am a big fan of this site and can spend hours on it) entry on India's Chandrayaan mission. Obama's reaction to the launch - "We are reminded just how urgently we must revitalise our space program, if we are to remain the undisputed leader in space, science, and technology". He has been regularly pointing to India and China to frighten the Americans into wirking harder and increasing their talents. Are the days gone when people talked about collaboration? Is competition and the need to be on top the all-consuming desires of the day?
It'll be a cliche to say that we live in a competitive, dog-eat-dog world. No doubt, that is true. But the question is what kind of competition have we given rise to? Take the Indian education system for instance. Suicides are a regular feature after any entrace exam. People who write graduate entrance tests commit suicides, students in school commit suicide. All of this is because of the premium we put on academic excellence (reservation is another bogeyman for the students).
There have been proposals to remove marking systems and introduce grading systems in our schools. I confess I do not know where this proposal stands as on date. This competition extends into all spheres of life. Take my life till date for instance.
My admission into my first school was because of my mother's connections (I think). So I was lucky at that stage. I think my entry into the second school was based on my performance. My third school admitted me in spite of my less-than-required scores in one entrance paper because of my father (as told to me by my mother when I joined). In my defense, I did perform well in all three schools and was always present in the top 5 (maybe all the time).
Now the struggle starts. First came my tenth boards. Then came the Intermediate (11th and 12th classes in the Andhra Pradesh board). Then the graduate entrances (EAMCET, IITJEE, AIEEE, NDA, IIIT-Kolkata and maybe two others). I got into BIT Mesra where owing to my summer internship and PPO I did not have to sit for the placements (or rather was not allowed to). Then I worked for two years and all this time was writing PG entrances (CAT thrice, never with any respectable preparation, GRE, IIFT once successfully and a few others). I got into IIFT. Then there was competition to get a summer internship and come December 2009 competition again for placements (I am literally praying for the situation to improve). From what I have observed placements time is akin to war time. I have heard tales about friends not behaving like friends (ahem, is a friend supposed to sacrifice his potential job position so that you can get it?) and such tales. This is inevitable. God only knows what my future holds for me.
However, I also want to talk about competition in a larger sense of the word. I confess that one of the very, very few things I envy others for are their higher marks! Why? Is this because of my upbringing in a society which places a premium on good academic performance? I honestly cannot say. There is this small whatever-you-wish-to-call-it which says that a person was happy that he had no footwear till he saw a person who had no legs. I say this is still not a great thing to do - comparing yourself to a less-privileged person. There is the danger of complacency. Satisfaction is good, not complacency. Gautama Buddha asked us not to compare ourselves with others and said that this is a path to misery. There was a swamiji (maybe Chinna Jeeyar Swamy) who mentioned the concept of atma-spartha. Atma means (with) self and spartha means competition. I liked this concept a lot. Don't compare yourself with another person for the sake of competition. Set your own benchmarks and constantly strive to exceed them. Compete with yourself. This is a nice concept, I don't know how many people can actually implement this successfully. Coming back to Obama, I want someone to tell him to please motivate his countrymen, frightening them might work but why choose that way?
