Compe ni Compe

Been thinking about how many things are unnecessarily about competition and the only purpose this competition, coupled with comparison serves is to further capitalism.

Let me explain:

There is something our parents do when they pit their kids against other kids, where they go/went to school, where they work, their occupation etc. Anytime I hear parents talk to other parents like “my kids does xyz, goes to this school and therefore is better than yours” I am usually like…. FOR WHAT? (and anyway I realise most parents don’t even know if their kids are happy. They are more focused on the other things that they can brag about). Don’t forget how parents are always competing about which of their kids is married and also how many kids they have. I don’t even understand. I mean, I do but ah………

Aspirational living – (PS: I am not talking about aspirational class economics). This is something I could go in depth but you know me and long blog posts are not friends so I am going to keep it simple. I am talking about people we encounter, on social media or otherwise who are held up as what we should aspire to be – how they live their lives, do their things, how they look etc ……….. Couple goals, body goals – you get what I mean. I mean I could start with how flawed the idea of couple goals is but that is a post for another day. We should all want to be them and spend our time, money, mind working towards that – all of us, in competition for this idealised life. Even the competition on friends is something to behold on social media. Claiming friends of people for social capital sakes and not because a connection exists will never cease to amuse me.

The concept of “living your best life” in a nut shell means that you are doing the best that you can do at any given point in your life. That is it. There is no one out there who can tell you what living your best life looks like. And anyone who does 1. Is seeing it from a capitalistic mindset (money, things, idealised bodies) and 2. Is in a competition with everyone else out there for this sameness that we are always told to achieve. Let us take travel as an example: I know people who do not care about traveling – they find that being in planes tedious, hotel rooms unsanitary etc. Yet there is a sense that we should all be yearning for travel. In fact, we should be talking about this best life thing until kingdom come because how else will everyone around us know we are living our best life so they can see how much better we are doing compared to them?

Don’t forget how we also compete on who is the busiest……..I mean. That shit isn’t even healthy but apparently it is some badge of honour to be soooo busy.

We are obsessed with the concept of winning and in that case, someone else must be losing, right? Must someone around you be doing worse for you to feel good about yourself? What does this competition, comparison serve?

Listen, I don’t have any answers, conclusions – as I said from the beginning, these are thoughts I have been having.