Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about competition.
Let me back up for a minute.
For several months now, I have been sitting on a cushion of joy. My new book sold to a publishing house and was welcomed so enthusiastically that my editor sent me flowers. Lovely things were happening and days passed in a gilt-edged haze. A magical sense permeated my world. When the date was set for publication, I flipped the calendar ahead to June and marked the day with a star.
Several weeks passed and then a good friend called to tell me her novel was also scheduled for a June release. My first reaction was delight. This was, after all, a friend who had been generous and supportive all during the months and months I was writing my novel and had wished nothing but great success for me. It even seemed fitting that our books would be released simultaneously since during the past year we have shipped chapters back and forth for feedback. But no sooner had we hung up than it hit me: Our books would be in direct competition.
As quickly as that, my cushion of joy – the pillow that had supported me for weeks - deflated. My dearest confidant morphed into my competitor. I felt my heart – which until now had championed my colleague – shrink to the size of a toenail.
In the following days she called with up-dates: Her publisher was flying her to Florida to speak to the reps at the big sales conference. Her cover art was gorgeous. Her publicist had secured a June 17th appearance on the Today Show.
“Terrific,” I’d manage, my jaw as tight as a boxer’s fist, the sweetness of my triumph gone sour. Competition is the grinch that steals happiness.
Here’s how it works. It begins with the impulse to compare. How much is her promotion budget? How many cities are scheduled for his book tour? What size print run is her publisher planning? Who has he got to do cover quotes? Did her house spring for a celebrity photographer for the jacket’s author shot?
Almost instantly, comparison edges over to competition. Competition, let loose, feeds dissatisfaction and – ultimately - envy.
And once envy got its fangs in my throat, I was road kill. “The wasting disease,” Cynthia Ozick calls it. I forgot all the reasons I write. I lost touch with the joy and satisfaction that comes from language and story and the fellowship of writing.
We live in a culture that encourages competition. Our economy is based on the very principle of competition. Early on we learn to place our worth on where we sit in the pecking order. From grade school on we are rated and judged against our peers, in academics and athletics and looks.
While it might run the economic system, competition is a straightjacket for artists. It is a vampire that drains spirit and soul. It leads to depression and oppression. As the husband of a friend said, “To compare is to despair.”
I tried to remind myself of these things as I struggled to accept my friend’s news. I counseled myself that success wasn’t a stew. That every ladle scooped out to someone else didn’t mean less for me. But, in a society where competition is the bedrock of commerce, how do we reprogram our minds? How do we separate aspiration from competition? How do we find a way to honor our own aspirations and celebrate our sisters’ successes?
I struggled to come up with answers.
Then, one Sunday, the words of a wise minister showed me the way. “The essence of a joyful life,” he said, “is not competition but gratitude.”
Gratitude. The essence of a joyful life. How could I have forgotten?
When we sit in gratitude, when we acknowledge all the blessings, there is no room for competition. Gratitude expands the soul. It converts an attitude of poverty – the tight thinking that there is not enough for everyone, that I won’t get my share – to one of abundance.
It refocuses our ambitions so that we aspire not to be the best, but to do our best.
It reminds us why we write.
The reward is always in the work.