Oh yeah... Well, Top This!
"Anything you can do I can do better. I can do anything better than you. No, you can't. Yes, I can. No, you can't. Yes, I can. No, you can't. Yes, I can. Yes, I can. Yes, I CAN!"
There's a fine line between healthy and unhealthy competitiveness. I played a few sports as a child. And, I remember the healthy side of it. The team spirit. The 'We can do it!' excitement. Good healthy stuff. The kind of competitiveness that when you walk away from the game, life continues normally whether win or lose. Yeah, I would still be a bit disappointed if I lost. But, never to the point of letting it destroy me. I understood it really was just a game. I had proper perspective. And, when the game was over, the competition was over.
But, when it's more than just a game --when it's a part of someone's daily agenda to be the front runner of everything and in every scenario, it can become amazing unhealthy. Someone tells a joke and they feel like they need to say a better one and get the bigger laugh. A wife makes a creative project and shows it off to her husband, and his first reaction is to look for the flaws and consider how he could have done it better. Ladies' unspoken pettiness over looks and fashion and the 'oh, I so look better than her' attitude.
It seems to me that this kind of competitiveness is really in part just the fruit of insecurity. The person feeds off of 'winning' just to feel good about themselves from one day to the next. They have to feel on top. Otherwise, it might prove they are somehow less important. Insignificant. Maybe even to the extreme...worthless. Of course, that's competely a lie. But, quite a reality in their minds.
A new kind of confidence needs to be found.
And, guess what? It has nothing to do with the person's performance, appearance, ability, talent, etc. And, has everything to do with their security, ironically, in Someone else. To find that because of where they stand with Him, they, too, are Winners! And, with that kind of Confidence, it won't matter if they're not the funniest, most creative or prettiest...... because they no longer place their self-worth in it.
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There's a fine line between healthy and unhealthy competitiveness. I played a few sports as a child. And, I remember the healthy side of it. The team spirit. The 'We can do it!' excitement. Good healthy stuff. The kind of competitiveness that when you walk away from the game, life continues normally whether win or lose. Yeah, I would still be a bit disappointed if I lost. But, never to the point of letting it destroy me. I understood it really was just a game. I had proper perspective. And, when the game was over, the competition was over.
But, when it's more than just a game --when it's a part of someone's daily agenda to be the front runner of everything and in every scenario, it can become amazing unhealthy. Someone tells a joke and they feel like they need to say a better one and get the bigger laugh. A wife makes a creative project and shows it off to her husband, and his first reaction is to look for the flaws and consider how he could have done it better. Ladies' unspoken pettiness over looks and fashion and the 'oh, I so look better than her' attitude.
It seems to me that this kind of competitiveness is really in part just the fruit of insecurity. The person feeds off of 'winning' just to feel good about themselves from one day to the next. They have to feel on top. Otherwise, it might prove they are somehow less important. Insignificant. Maybe even to the extreme...worthless. Of course, that's competely a lie. But, quite a reality in their minds.
A new kind of confidence needs to be found.
And, guess what? It has nothing to do with the person's performance, appearance, ability, talent, etc. And, has everything to do with their security, ironically, in Someone else. To find that because of where they stand with Him, they, too, are Winners! And, with that kind of Confidence, it won't matter if they're not the funniest, most creative or prettiest...... because they no longer place their self-worth in it.
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