As an Aikidoka, one of the core concepts is ‘No Competition’. Which generally means that there is no tournaments, no gold medals, no ‘winner/loser’ in that sense, and most of us gets it.
So I thought.
It was only recently I came to a realization the true virtues of ‘No Competition.’
Sure, we all know that you don’t go out there and compete against others, we don’t race for the first place, but… do you compete against yourself? If you run 5km at 30mins yesterday will you try to beat that record today? And if you do, did you ‘win’? Give yourself a pat on the back?
While I have been practicing Aikido for more than 2 decades, it took an Austrian, Alfred Adler to really bring home this point. As a psychotherapist, Adler also espouses non-competition, as he sees everyone as ‘different but equal.’ Which means that a baby is equal to a billionaire but different, it makes a lot of sense to me, and I hit an eureka moment.
I am equal, but different
How is this possible for me to compete against myself, if I am different in every moment, and the past me cannot equate to the present me, and the future me is a potential that has yet to be discovered? So who am I competing with when I compete with myself? It is simply a delusion of the mind that props a ‘protagonist/antagonist’ duality for us to justify a shallow existence.
True peace comes from non-competition with self.
I was jogging one day and this really hit me, about improvement, do I improve based on my past? That the past is a poor representation of who I can really become, because the past is gone and exist as a figment of our fickle memory; while we move forward, we can only look at our current capabilities built from the past, and move along from there.
Once we can really cease all hostilities and waging a phantom war against ourselves, then we can find true peace, and look at our past, good bad, and the ugly without judgment. I often said that we are our own worse enemy and perhaps it is time for us to be just us, in the present, me-enemy, me-friend and me, all rolled into the present self.
Beat Yesterday
This is actually a slogan for a smart watch company, in reality It’s not gonna be a very fruitful endeavor trying to achieve past glory, because we are a gold medalist once, doesn’t means we can do it again and again, once you are past your prime, what will become of you? When all the accolades have faded, and you are left alone, who else can you beat, if you can no longer beat yourself? Or beat yesterday? Why don’t we just stop beating ourselves, yesterday or any timing, people, achievements, heights and all that? Just live a life of peace and acceptance, just simply do your best and let that shine, when your best isn’t good enough to win, you’ll know that you will not lose you.
Aikidology 