Competitions should be constructive not destructive.

Competition is one of the characteristics of living things according to Biology 101 and MR NIGER CAD. Just as living things move, breathe, feed, grow, excrete, reproduce and adapt to stimuli, so also all living things compete. We compete for food, light, space, mates and more. This is not a bad thing but a good thing as it aids the natural selection process of evolution.

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Competition is necessary in any ecosystem as it fosters growth and keeps us on our toes. Where there's no competition, things tend to turn out stale, dry and unexciting. Potentials would not be unlocked and we may never know how far we can go or reach.

But just like everything else, competition has its extremes. One side is healthy competition while the other side is unhealthy competition.

In healthy competition, the entities competing strive to outdo one another and achieve a certain goal but they do this in the spirit of friendliness, sportsmanship and excellence. You would find that when the competition is over, there is no bad blood between the competitors

On the flip side,we have unhealthy competition and it is the exact opposite of healthy competition. The competitors are out for blood and not sportsmanship. They want to achieve a goal but they use dirty methods and tricks that hurt the other party involved in the said competition.

I know that a competition has become unhealthy when those involved stoop low to start using underhanded tricks, shady dealings and rivalry spirit against their opponents. When the means to an end is disregarded or shady, that falls into the category of unhealthy competition.

There was a time at my former place of work when we were given a specified target to meet up with. It was during the festive seasons and demand was high. To spice things up, ,my boss decided to sweeten the pot by promising an additional amount on our basic salary at the end of the month. I remember a particular girl in our team wanted to win so much that she went to the other departments to sabotage their work and she rushed her own work without a care for quality.

In the end, the finished product did not come out beautifully nor did it satisfy the target customers. That led to a loss on my company's part as the prices of the goods had to be reduced just to make sales. She wanted to win by all means and that to me is how I know that a competition had turned unhealthy.

Keeping balance

What I do is to constantly remind myself that I am not the only one in this. I try my best to foster a supportive relationship with the rest of my team and flow with the rest of them. It is just like in football, no matter the outcome of the match, the players would shake hands on the field before departing.

I also do my best not to compare myself with my opponent as I know that we have our different strengths. Instead of comparing myself, I learn what I don't know from my opponent and harness it to become better.

The next thing I do is to value and appreciate the little efforts put into the competition. More than celebrating the end result, I try to also enjoy the process and learn while on the journey.

Thank you all for reading. This is my entry to the #hivelearners initiative for week 171e1

Images used are mine.