Josie+T’s+2017+OpEd+Article

Competition, Perfectionism, and Happiness By Josie Thorp

What does being in a club sport and attending school have in common? A lot probably.

But one definitive characteristic that is shared is the competitive atmosphere. Club sports are highly competitive (extracurriculars are in general, but for the sake of my experience, I will stick to club sports).

Go down the list of questions: How many people are on the team? Are you the worst? Are you a starter? Who can score the most goals? Have the highest shooting percentage? Be the fastest? And it goes on and on and on. It’s your teammates that you must beat out in competition to play, and then there’s an inter team level of competition. How good is the team? How many teams can you beat? What is your record? How far can you go?

It’s a constant struggle, to be better than everyone else, personally and team wise.

Academics is the same, especially Honors/AP kids. It’s a constant struggle to one-up each other. I hear it all the time. Whenever people ask what score you got on something, they’re not really curious about how you did. They just want to know how they did, in comparison to you. They want to validate themselves, tell themselves that they’re the best, or at least better than others. They compare themselves to others to quiet their insecurities, to give themselves confidence. But self worth based wholly on competition isn’t confidence. It can’t be. Confidence is internal, any if you validate yourself through external means then it simply cannot be confidence. It can be perceived superiority masquerading insecurity, but hey, I digress.

Well, what is the big deal about competition? Simply put, it makes us raise the expectations for ourselves to impossibly high standards, leaving a wake of perfectionists riddled with anxiety over mistakes and failure. Because when the stakes are high, the tiniest mistake will set you way behind your peers. The tiniest mistake leads to an automatic failure, the tiniest mistake makes you a failure. Or so it’s perceived. In actuality, mistakes are natural, inevitable, helpful even. Flawed brilliance is better than mediocre perfection, or something like that. Mistakes are bound to happen, and they can help us grow. I can’t even tell you of how many times I’ve heard people complaining about their 99/100 or their one B. The perfectionism as a result of competition is very real, especially in AP kids. I’m in Bioscience, I hear enough of it.

Of course, perfectionism and competition isn’t all bad. It motivates people to do things, to push themselves. But really, the drive to improve ourselves shouldn’t be so that we can be better than others, but better than ourselves. There’s also the anxiety it gives. I used to be afraid to shoot the ball (I still kind of am) because I didn’t want to miss. My father, probably quoting John Wooden, would tell me,”You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”. And okay, that may be true, but I’d rather make 0/0 shots than 0/12. Or I would refuse to do a homework assignment because I was afraid it wouldn’t be good enough. Intentionally getting a bad grade is better than trying and being deemed a failure. It’s a sort of coping mechanism to prevent myself from failure. After all, you can’t fail if you never try. Evidently, that’s not healthy.

And I’m not going to pretend for one second that I don’t buy into competition. It’s true, I’ve been person that validates myself based on comparing my results to others, and sometimes I fall back into it. While competition isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it should be regulated to be healthy.

“The secret to happiness is low expectations”. If this is true, then that would suggest that the pursuit of happiness is opposite to the pursuit of perfection. So be it. People (myself included) are so concerned with being the best and not failing ever, that doing things for fun and not caring about skill or talent or ability, is considered a strange thing to do. Why? If it makes you happy, do it. The obsession with being good at everything and outdoing others is hurting our happiness. You don’t have to be concerned with being the best, if you’re improving yourself, and are happy, then that’s all that matters. Internal validation is all that matters.

Competition and perfectionism can be healthy in small amounts, but ultimately, the pursuit of perfection is opposite to pursuit of happiness. If necessary, discard perfection to grab what really matters, your happiness. Comparing yourself to others in not only unnecessary, but harmful. It’s only you that matters.