One of the life lessons I was given as a kid revolved around the old saying that "it is more important to participate well than it is to win."
In some ways, I suppose that was reflective of the overall culture and social value system in my native Denmark where I grew up, and where "winning at any cost" was not nearly as much of a thing as it turned out to be here in the US after I moved here.
Not many people know this about me but in my early twenties I was actually a pretty decent golfer... to the point of being good enough that I was seriously considering going on the professional tour in Europe.
One of the main reasons I ended up not doing so had to do with talking to several people who informed me — in not so many words — that I did not have a "winning nature."
Essentially it was implied that I would "fail" because I was not approaching the idea of going on tour from the angle of becoming the best the game has ever seen but just to compete and do well enough that I could earn a paycheck week after week.
At the time, I didn't much have the power of my own convictions, so I took those opinions to heart and went in a different direction.
From my perspective of now being of what many would consider "retirement age," I look back and must conclude that my general approach to life of simply wanting to participate well in whatever I took on has not stood me in good stead in a world that is mostly ultra competitive.
That's not to say that I wish I had done things differently or that I would do them differently if I had the opportunity to start over, it's more of a recognition of the fact that I have always felt like I fit in particularly badly with the predominant paradigm.
I remember when I was working as a technical writer in the IT industry I was actually "encouraged" to leave my job with a Fortune 500 computer maker because I was perfectly happy being a really good technical writer but had no interest in becoming a manager. I was subtly informed that I "didn't have the right attitude to succeed" with the company.
The sad thing is that I felt like I was succeeding really well by being a top-notch technical writer, but the fact that I was satisfied with that —and not striving for more — was seen as an obstacle and counter to corporate culture.
I even think about the years I have spent here on Hive and realize that I have never been particularly interested in becoming "the biggest whale" or "the top blogger" here... I just wanted to be a writer and do reasonably well at that. In some ways, I think I have succeeded in that.
I won't deny that competitiveness has likely been at the core of many human inventions and leaps in progress, but that doesn't mean that I was ever able to relate nor have much inclination to be part of that quest.
All in all, I'm pretty content to live in the realm of "to each their own," even if the greater world hasn't always approved.
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2026.10.29 01:43 PDT
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