Zen Pencils by Gavin Aung Than for July 21, 2014

What you are is a loser. Can’t hack competition? There will always be those at the top and those at the bottom. Find your place in the pecking order and deal with it.

It is people like you who enable the 1% to exploit the rest of us! Keep us busy by competing about everything so that we don’t notice what really is happening.

Competition? There’s always, ALWAYS, someone better at anything. Knowing that, and knowing yourself, ironically leads to the most happiness. That is where the virtue of humility and the fallacy, the sin, of pride.

Accept who you are. Know your strong points and your weak points. Everyone has their own role to fill, and knowing that, you will be more at peace.

How can you strive to improve yourself, if there is no scale to measure by, and if you have no place on the scale?The point should be that, at some point in the competition, you have to be proud of what you have accomplished to that point.Self-worth by definition implies a scale, from low to high. The issue I have is with the schools and organizations handing out awards in the name of self-esteem. There is no merit behind the award, no feeling of accomplishment. Just a temporary glow of possession. These awards are not teaching our children how to succeed in life. They teach them that it is acceptable to not strive. That the world owes you what you can’t, or won’t, achieve for yourself.

That’s not really Zen. Zen deals with the Ineffable that lives as us and everyone and everything. Knowing this, it is useless to put much weight on competition and competitive striving, but it becomes incumbent upon us to live to our fullest in each moment in the eternal Now. It would be counterproductive to remain uncognizant of what has already been accomplished if our drive is to continue to “grow” in this reality. What is important to remember is that Zen masters often laugh when asked about life and ultimate reality. Just remember, we’re all just writing and acting in our own play.

Thanks for introducing me to Jiddu Krishnamurti. Very nice comic.

One does not need a scale to improve. Observation of ones own labors, and outcomes, tells the tale…and is NOT a scale. The diversity of skills, interests, points of view, quirks, etc. between one individual and another are so varied as to make comparison ridiculous. It would be trying to conduct an experiment with NO control. Hagowar, Kirk, and similar others are just too comfortable with their own little world view, no doubt as it has been taught to them, or in a reframing, as they have been indoctrinated. See there? That’s a form of comparison I just made, and there was really no point in doing it. My opinion was made or not made without any reference to you at all…but that is the tendency, isn’t it? Let go of that, and you can still argue, or do your best to support your own view, but there’s less likely to be an actual fight, and no one is being repressed or assaulted. Compete if you must…or just do what you do, and be who you are, without worrying about what anyone else is doing.

…..someone else’s grass always looks greener…..so that means: to someone else your grass always looks greener (regardless of this drought).

Is it just me or do they all look .. Canadian?

There have been cultures that are not competitive and probably there still are. I think the Navaho culture was one. Children are discouraged from being better than the group and cooperation is the norm. I understand they work well until they are attacked by the trained killers of a competitive society. Then the children are sent off to boarding schools to be trained, brutally if necessary, to accept competition as the superior way of life. Ironic, as humans would never have survived or evolved except as a cooperative group.

Yeah, my wife does this so she can make herself miserable. That’s when she’s happiest.

Ken,The concept of improvement is a scale. What was perceived as less, is now perceived as more, or vice versa. Even if the competition is only with yourself. I am not overly competitive, in that I must win all contests, but there are many small contests in our daily life. Make the light before it changes. Get to the pharmacy/bank/grocery store before it closes. Just setting any minor goal is a competition, so how would you go about your business without a scale?As for the variables involved in competing against others, most of them are ignored as irrelevant (Whether they are, or not, is another discussion, lol), and a scale is chosen that appears attainable. I do not think that we choose goals that we perceive to be beyond our capability to reach. I, for instance, would not set myself the goal of reaching the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro. Do I think it is possible for me to do? Yes, but it is not something that falls inside my arena of interest. In my present state, it is unobtainable, as I am neither fit enough, nor trained to climb snow-clad peaks.I understand the concept of a non-competitive life, I just don’t find it relevant to (my) reality.