Competition is a sin.

Is it?

John D Rockefeller said this.

 
If he hadn't been such a philanthropist I'd say he was a hypocrite. Perhaps he was both? "In 1870, he founded the Standard Oil Company and ran it aggressively until he officially retired in 1897." Tell me he didn't slaughter his competition, tell me he didn't use them as a driving force to succeed.

I've got a strange (paradoxical?) attitude to competition. (Add that to the long list of other things about which I have a strange attitude.)

Evidence:

1. I won't go to the gym at the moment because I have a cracked rib and I KNOW that, even so, once I get there, I'd be unable to take it easy. I'd not be able to stop myself from striving to achieve. So it's best not to go at all.

2. I enter a lot of contests - writing contests - and, yes, I WANT TO WIN THEM. Of course I do. Forget all that stuff about 'It's the taking part that's important...'

I want to win them fair and square, though. On merit. So, for example, if the contest requires people to vote for you, and the winning entry depends on who has the most, and the most favourable reviews, I will NOT ask all my mates. I won't even tell them I've entered. (So I don't win things very often!)

3. I find it very, very hard to watch competitions - particularly the bit where the winner is announced. I love a programme on TV called Masterchef. It was the final last night - the fifteenth episode, and I'd watched the other fourteen avidly.  I watched it right up until the point where the judges said that Tom's rhubarb could have been cooked a little longer. Tom's crestfallen face was enough to make me run from the room.

I simply couldn't bear to see the pain of the two who didn't win, that awful TV-manufactured suspense...

"And the Winner is..."

...followed by an eternity of waiting, of focusing on each face, on tears welling up in exhausted eyes.

I went to bed and pulled the duvet over my head so I couldn't even hear.

WHAT is all that about?

Well done, Shelina.

Though I wanted ALL of you to win.