One
of my favorite quotes over the years goes thus: “You can get what you want
in life if you be at the right place and time”. I believe so much in the bible principle that
says; “Time
and chance happeneth to them all”.
Success in life is not to be imitated by allowing other peoples achievements in
life be the benchmark for your goals. I strongly believe that we have unlimited
and infinite potentials within us that can shoot us to the top without
necessarily having to compete with other people to have or possess what they
have. There is always a room for each and every one as long as you have a course to steer in life. Look inward instead of looking outward because
your vision will become clear only when you look into your own heart. “He who looks outside,
dreams; whereas he who looks inside, awakes.
Always thrive to recognize your
potentials instead of looking at the guy next door who just bought a car after
just completing his building last few months because if you look at him, there
is bound to be competition arising from your heart to get to where he is too.
Guess what..! Competition degrades and enslaves the mind. It makes the
individual devoid of initiative, imagination and originality. Competition
originates from our need to imitate others. It is a very serious killer because
it deprives the individual of personal initiative and responsibility.
The habit of competing is so wide
spread that many people firmly believe that it is a law of nature. It is a very
deep misunderstanding as people tends to believe that, there is a resemblance
between initiative and competition. Initiative in the most highly priced of
virtues. Initiative is the opposite of competition. Competition on the contrary
is merely an initiative-response that lags behind while it waits for its
direction from someone whose head appears to be taller and who has been by us
to set the pace and direction of our activities. In essence, initiative
produces spontaneous action whereas competition produces delayed reaction to
stimuli from a pacemaker. Competition grows out of dependence. It imitates
initiative in deceptive way and clouds our understanding. You should never
compete in life because; you will be training yourself to outrun your
pacemaker. This in turn only makes you to imitate existing patterns without
trying to find yours.
The way out of a trap is to know the
way the trap is built and is same as competition. Competition arises only out
of a lack of self-reliance. It is simple. Self-dependence accomplishes that
which competition can never touch. It should be pointed out here that, competition
is solely based on the habit of making comparisons. We either compare ourselves
as above or below others. We regard those above us as authority figures who are
in position to block our progress and those below us as those who somehow may
displace us tomorrow. Hence, comparison breeds FEAR and fear breeds COMPETITION. We believe our safety
depends on killing off the one above us. Hence, the competitive individual will
run, jump, steal, lie, murder or do anything he feels is necessary to do in order
to win the praise he seeks. One of the basic, emotional attitudes that underline
competition is the feeling of hostility; there is no such thing as friendly
competition. It grows out of a desire to achieve a position of dominance and to
enforce submission of others.
In summary, the competitive person
operates out of constant fear. Fear always limits and degrades us. We can never
achieve our potential ability in the climate of fear that competition breeds.
Dependence leads to fear, fear leads to comparison, comparison leads to
competition and competition eventually destroys us by degrading us to imitation,
conformity or mediocrity.
So
the best way to achieve all that you can possibly achieve is always to look
inside and seek infinite possibilities within and work your way to the top
rather than placing yourself of on the scale of others. To achieve outstanding
success in life you must BE
YOURSELF.
