Cooperation and Competition

  Is there any particular need to compare oneself to others? I prefer a different paradigm, namely seeing difference and being able to respect that we are on this world to learn from differences. This requires a careful balancing act. On the one hand, we acknowledge that we are incomplete in many ways, and we require the talents and skills of others in order for our lives to be completed. No matter how romantic the solitary life of a Thoreau might seem, even Thoreau would have acknowledged that he cannot provide all the things he needs to survive by himself simply through free will. In this way, I learn that I have skills that others need, while others need skills that I need. This is an attitude of mutual cooperation that is quite different from the ethos of competition, which reads something like , "I had better have something that others need, so that I don't become redundant". This latter view is based on the idea of scarcity of talents: there are not enough talents, abilities, skills, etc, to go around, in other words.

    If I revise the notion of "not good enough" and "need to be the same as others" to "we are different" and "I can learn from you", then I am no longer trying to be something different from the current state of who I am. I am willing to plant seeds to improve, but I am not sticking to the idea that someone else is "better" than I, or vice versa. All interconnections are like the intermingling of gardens: some seeds are planted, but that doesn't mean that every plant will grow in the same way, at the same rate, or even with the same vitality. Respecting different kinds of growth seems the key to avoiding resentment. This requires a rich sense of difference and diversity that does not go into needless comparisons.