Brain Dump | Morning Musings

Who would you rather compete with?

If we look at closely especially in social setting, everything is almost about competition. Take a look for example, a ranking system or something subtle that exists in our language “ keeping up with the Joneses” even the displayed numbers of our followers. Those are just tiny examples of how competition seeps into our life and for me, as a hypercompetitive individual, I’ve been on the journey of understanding this trait of mine.

For me, everything was all about competition. I always want to be better than others and I have this zero sum game mentality. But that was then.

Welcome to my brain dump, it’s morning and when I am able to sit down, sipping a cup of coffee while contemplating about life and emptying it out a little.

However, when I was learning more about Buddhism, one thing that I synthesized is basically leaving all of my competitive nature behind. From the religion, I learn to be a lot more against competition and foster something called healthy competition. Yet, I can’t lie, these past few years have been extremely challenging. I find life to be extremely dull. I consider myself succumbing to mediocrity and while I know, the game is rigged but I always find satisfaction when I could at least get to top 5 or even top 3 ranks despite the unfavorable circumstances that I have.

This topic was brought to my attention during a meeting with my highschool friend. They were reminiscing about how hard it was to get to university, especially the one I went to. The fact I made it in was something to be actually proud of. Yet to me, it was just another tick of the list. For me, it was more about being on top of something I really enjoy conquering.

While another topic that I had with a friend of mine is basically my aversion towards making money. For a competitive person, money is a marker of certain success. It shows our rank in the society. And for people like us, there’s satisfaction if we reach certain numbers. I was like that too in the past, trying to be ahead of people my age.

I am still trying to solve that part where now I feel some type of aversion towards money while I shouldn’t. So, my friend and I were brainstorming why I felt that way. I told him basically I feel like I don’t really see the end goal or something/person that made me compelled to be competitive. I am very much motivated by a worthy opponent but perhaps because lately my energy has been pretty much nonexistent, it’s probably why I don’t get into the game anymore.

Isn’t it just a childish game?

Not in my world. While I am aware that trying to be better than x, y, z can seem like a childish game, to me it’s just an extra motivation to be a better person. However, I am aware of the negative side of it where usually once I get way too competitive, I typically work harder than most people and could lead to a burnout and to this situation where I seek some type of isolation or being too zen about my life while I shouldn’t.

But I don’t know, these days being competitive again is scratching me to go back. I think I am too tired being too zen about my life. It needs a little spice where I am once again seeking adventure and thrills where I can see the result in terms of numbers and making the impossible possible.

I don’t know why I was ranting about that but interestingly, that came out during this morning coffee session. I mean, whatever I am writing here sort of flows itself. It’s my brain dump anyway and I am saying the things that might not make sense at all.

I always hear this around, writing content that people like. I mean technically over Hive, content that people like can be narrowed down into a few things. Pretty pictures (human, objects, nature) sell the most. Then food, not so much. Then, some type of hail Hive and hive is better than everything, or some type of complaint about hive also sells. People’s attention is pretty short and sometimes, even for me I find disingenuous people pretty annoying. They don’t even read and skim over everything. Especially with the AI, well don’t get me started.

But yeah, networking plays a huge role. I think if you’re starting from 0 and you’re not referred to by anyone, networking with the right people can get you far. I’ve been here for 6 years now and I’ve seen those who network with the “right” crowd make it. The only thing that would make a huge difference is if you’re too greedy about something. There’s always something about “wanting more” that could typically be the downfall of these people. Usually by wanting more, they do things that are frowned upon. But again, most people forgive and forget. Down the line you’ll learn about this golden nugget of connecting with the right people and you’d rinse and repeat latching on to a crowd that doesn’t know/be aware of your previous problems. Sometimes, people don’t care too which adds a luck factor to this.

If you made it that far, you could try that and see your luck. But yeah, be genuine. I think being genuine and honest gets you far. But don’t be brutally honest because that is another problem itself.

Anyhow, have a great weekend see you next morning.