Creation or competition: obstacles into resources

The question is whether to create or to compete, and the answer is both, at the right times and with a perspective that you yourself have chosen.

Creative mind, staying away from comparing ourselves to others needlessly: This is a mindset where we grow, we flourish, we allow things to take their time. The creative mind is the first of Yeats's two trees, where creation flourishes and time is spent rejoicing at the good fortune of being alive and companioned. We create more and more opportunities for manifesting great things.

Competitive mind: the second of Yeats's two trees. A barren winterscape filled with carrion birds where we assign self worth while chasing a form of perfection that doesn't exist, running forever on a mill-wheel pumping a murky stream of bitterness.

But as all is in all, we can easily turn this around, at the time of our choosing and see that competition, like anything is a resource if we'll claim it as such. Claiming competition as such is seeing that it is not without benefit, not without merit.

Porter's cluster theory describes clusters of economic activity that form with the right conditions of supply of natural resources, market availability and enough competition to keep product/service innovation. Competition is an important factor.

It is one thing to talk about competition being the life of trade, and beneficial. It is another to talk about that hateful feeling of constantly measuring ourselves against someone else with better looks and more money. It kills creativity, makes us miserable. If you want to feel bad, compare yourself with someone else.

But there is a third option, which is to allow yourself to be fully alive in your own creative power and strength and witness someone else's success without condemning it and feeling lousy about it.  Witness those qualities that you would want. Are they the external qualities or internal qualities? Just witness them without judging and you are on the way to viewing competition as a resource.  Another point is that if you can see the difference between you and someone else, you have been given enough intelligence and strength of observation to be able to orient yourself in terms of something you may want for yourself. Don't condemn someone else's success, as provoking as that might feel sometimes. Let it be there, witness it without judging it. This is how to redesign your internal operating system to turn an obstacle into a resource. It is right around the corner.

And some folks thrive on competition, which is fine, too. You can learn that too if you wish, and if it is in harmony with your core vision and values. If it isn't of interest to you just keep moving.