A Universal Look Into Competition
Hello! Lizabeth here writing about one of my favorite topics: competition. It’s everywhere so it is a good topic to discuss, indeed, with your kiddos. Does the word competition give you positive or negative vibes? Either way, here’s a positive outlook on competition for you to consider:
Spring is no exception to the plethora of sports event options for elementary, middle, and high school students across the globe.
At a baseball game, you would expect to see three players in the outfield with an umpire, batter, and catcher near the home plate. For golf, you would expect to see players lugging their golf clubs hole to hole while surveying the next hole’s topography attributes. For track, you would expect to see student athletes demonstrating their athletic prowess at running fast, hurdling an iron ball, or jumping as high as they can possibly go.
What else is there to see at any of these sports events? As a mother of a former swimmer, runner, and soccer player, I have spent hours at challenging practices and thrilling meets observing students and parents. The following points may enhance your experience the next time you’re at a student sports event.
- Who are the other students?
Simply stated, the other students are exactly who everyone is: spirits in borrowed body suits on life journeys trying to have the best experiences right now. We all arrived in these body suits in the same manner. We all will leave them behind when we are complete with these life experiences. From this universal perspective, we are all the same. Who We Really Are, that we all are made of the same substance, and that we arrived to have the best experiences right now are easy to forget when observing our offspring’s competition front and center of our attentions. So, let’s continue this discussion…
- What good is competition?
Competition is very beneficial when done through the lens of Who We Really Are. For example, two wrestlers at a meet have refined their craft during years of practices. They begin, they react to what is happening, they discover a different technique either from within themselves or from the opponent’s moves, and then they return to the team bench expanded with more wrestling knowledge than just a few minutes ago. This is competition at its best: expansion! Two spirits in borrowed body suits on life journeys trying to have the best experiences right now interacted for the opportunity for expansion occur.
- What is really going on here?
Sports offer the ability to move past what one thought was possible. When Tiger Woods stepped onto the golfing scene with his incredibly strong swing, it created expansion of what was possible for millions. With this perspective, one observing a sports event can marvel at all the spirits in body suits doing amazing things, breaking records, and pushing the boundaries of status quo.
- Who will win?
Winning is definitely a part of the sports arena, although this topic is not as clear cut as it may seem. The team who wins is the team with the most cohesion, the most focused thoughts, and the most singularly focused attention to skill. We saw this in the Purdue vs. Fairleigh Dickinson college playoff basketball game. The underdog by far, Fairleigh Dickinson had the most team cohesion, focused thoughts, and attention to skill. It worked. Quite the win!
The next time you attend any sports event, consider observing through a universal lens and watch yourself being more positive about the other players, amazed at what all of them are doing, and thrilled with the expansion unfolding before your eyes.