Competition

Fall, it seems, is a season for catching things. Colds, the flu, and philosophical reflection, to name just a few. And the funny thing is, all three have pretty much the same symptoms. You get a headache, your appetite is spotty, and you sit and frown a lot. Since more than enough has been said about colds and the flu, I guess I'm left with philosophical reflection. Fall is a particularly suitable time for that sort of thing. A lot of things are beginning again in the fall... school, football games, meetings of all sorts of organizations... any number of situations in which people are thrown together seem to pop up in the fall.

Now, I guess it's just a natural process, when a person is faced with a wide range of things to think about, to sort of lump them all together and come up with just one, a kind of a symbol of all the others. It's easier to think that way, and it takes a lot less writing besides. And for me, the fall symbol par excellence is and always will be, school.

School was for most of us the first exposure to the need to relate to people in a wide range of ways. School was for most of us the first time we were forced to call up all of our social skills, and quickly, sometimes overnight, acquire a few new ones. School was the furnace in which those social skills were tested, purified, refined. School was the mine in which we quarried a little knowledge, and a lot of ability to survive. In short, school was a pain in the neck.

Now, don't misunderstand me. I enjoyed studying. I enjoyed learning. I very much enjoyed the chance to satisfy my curiosity about any number of things. What I didn't enjoy was going to school. And while I was in the midst of it all I never really understood why. It puzzled me how an experience that held such promise could in fact be such a burden. It wasn't until I got to the other end of a classroom, behind a teachers desk, that it all sort of fell into place.

It happened one morning while I was passing out report cards. There is probably no greater feeling of power in all the world. I was only about a quarter of the way through the class when I noticed that something of a pattern was beginning to develop. Each student would get his card, open it, take one quick glance at it, then stare long and hard at the cards of those around him. From the start there had been a ripple of sound sort of splashing from wall to wall, but by the time all of the cards had been delivered the ripple had become a tidal wave. From blocks away the question could be heard... "What did you get?"

Now why, I couldn't help asking myself, should it be so important to them what the next guy got? Idle curiosity I could understand, (I relate well to idleness in any form) but this was a truly fevered need to know. They were all so interested in what the other guy got, because, apparently, that was what really determined the value of their own marks. In other words, B was a good mark only if the next guy got a C. If your neighbor got A, then B was really a put-down. And so on down the line. The whole problem was that those students were learning, not in concert with others, but in competition with others. Whether or not a student was good in a particular subject was not nearly as important as whether or not he was better than somebody else. The key to the whole experience of school was competition. Now that scared me. Frankly, it still does.

Sheer competition may make sense in economics. It's fine on the ball field. It may even have its uses as an academic measuring instrument. But in social skills, in the ability to relate comfortably and creatively to other people, it means havoc. And if competition is what most clearly colors the situation in which a person learns these things, then for the rest of his life there is a pretty good chance that he will see every thing he does in terms of a battle, a contest where all that really matters is to come out ahead, to win. And that is not a good way to live. It's not satisfying. It's just no fun.

Try a little experiment. The next time your son, daughter, brother, friend or whoever comes home from playing on the school football or basketball team, (or any sport, debate, science fair, you name it) don't ask "Did you win?", ask rather "Did you have fun?". I've tried that, and I've gotten a lot of puzzled stares in return. Almost as if to say, "What difference does that make?"

Now of course, competition in anything can be a good thing. It can spur excellence, it can stimulate a person's best effort. But when a whole society sees competition in everything as the one and only path to success, then excellence inevitably suffers. No one has time and energy enough to concern himself with the quality of his own effort, and the quality of everyone else's effort as well. We will never be sensitive to people, to their needs, to their hurts, if we grow up spending most of our time wondering how to beat them.

From 1980 through 1982, Father Sandell served as Chaplain to the Bishop O'Reilly Council No. 3918,Grafton, North Dakota Chapter of the Knights of Columbus. "Scattered Thoughts" is a collection of essays based on columns originally written for the Chaplain's Corner, section of the Council's monthly newsletter.