personal ambition vs. competition?

[Gaze]

How do you feel about competition? Do you enjoy competition or is just a necessity? Are you more personally ambitious or competitive? Do you think there's a difference between the two? Do you think you need to be competitive to be ambitious? Do you think you need to be competitive to win the top spot?

 

[isabellajay]

I get competitive with other people over silly things, like scrabble. Ha.
I'm not really ambitious or competitive though. Maybe it's me or maybe it's an INFJ thing,
but I personally just seek for inner peace with myself. I want to feel good
about what I do, who I am. I kind of hate competition because our
world has turned into this scary "I need to be better than you" place and I don't like it.
Maybe that's just me being...negative.

 

[Trifoilum]

How do you feel about competition?

bitter wine. It doesn't taste good for me, but being drunk by it! The power! The victory! The glory! The pride! Oh god.

Do you enjoy competition or is just a necessity?

Again, it's not even something that tastes good or a necessity-- but it allures. It makes one drunk and it's addictive.
At a certain level society EXPECTS competition; something that I felt had influenced me recently as well. But at the same time, I don't think it was a necessity...more like, it was made to appear necessary.

Are you more personally ambitious or competitive?

I think somewhere in the middle, but I don't know-- it may be the latter.

Do you think there's a difference between the two?

Yes; both are about exceeding a certain target;
but ambitions exist without other people and their own achievements; competitiveness doesn't.

Do you think you need to be competitive to be ambitious?

Not really, I think.

Do you think you need to be competitive to win the top spot?

To some degree, yes. At least to be aware of others' ability and capacity.

 

[this is only temporary]

... and to run with Trifolium's bitter wine metaphor, (which was excellent and I agree with it!) we've all met some people who simply will not put down the Competition bottle ever. Moderation, people!

This is an interesting post, and something I've been learning about my whole life. I used to loathe competition and think it was all negative and bad, and I don't like sports, because seeing people lose or get tackled makes me wince. Bad sportsmanship is definitely a form of negative competition. However, living with a man who is very athletic and fairly competitive, I've learned that there is such a thing as healthy competition, and the healthy kind involves having high standards and teamwork, in the best sense of the word. And that sometimes both competitors relish the challenge, even the one who loses. It still seems peculiar to me.

And yes, people have to be competitive to some degree, not necessarily to win the top spot, but to live up to their potential, whatever it is, and to have high standards.

 

[TinyBubbles]

Competition with myself? Awesome

Competition with others? Nah. Unless it was all for fun, like when playing a board game or something.

 

[Mary Shelley]

I am the least competitive person I have ever known. For me, it can only serve to make someone else feel bad and never makes me feel good. It's possible that I have been too effected by having people decide to stop playing games with me when I got good at them. It made me wish I wasn't as good so we could continue playing together.

 

[floatingbridge]

How do you feel about competition? Do you enjoy competition or is just a necessity? Are you more personally ambitious or competitive? Do you think there's a difference between the two? Do you think you need to be competitive to be ambitious? Do you think you need to be competitive to win the top spot?

Competition can be fun (generally when you know you're one of the winners), but I find it doesn't last as long as achieving what you set out in your personal ambitions. I've grown from doing sporting events and academic tests as a youngster to an adult now defining my own set of unique goals and definitions of success. Particularly in the diagnosis of illness, I realise not everyone has the same level playing field, but that doesn't mean I can't be just as satisfied in achieving my goals as the "top-dogs" do in achieving theirs. Also, there are so many top spots in life, for so many people of different walks of life to achieve. I think it's interesting that the winners often have had to sacrifice a lot in order to get such and such position. e.g. time, money, experience, etc. ~

 

[knight in battle]

How do you feel about competition? Do you enjoy competition or is just a necessity? Are you more personally ambitious or competitive? Do you think there's a difference between the two? Do you think you need to be competitive to be ambitious? Do you think you need to be competitive to win the top spot?

Competition and ambition are just the nature of games and the marketplace. Without ambition, things don't get done, either in a competitive environment or otherwise. Competition is inevitable when people are doing and producing functionally similar things in a given place.

I have to compete, but I don't have to be competitive to win the top spot, even in situations when I have an obvious opponent. By this, I mean I don't need to aim to be better than my competitors in order to win. I can be at my personal best and end up in the top spot, in some situations.

Competition and ambition can produce the same results, depending on the primary purpose. The primary purpose can be to achieve a specific rank, or it can be to enjoy a challenge (and possibly also produce a result, besides rank).

Inherently competitive activity is only fun when I'm up to the challenge and like the activity.

 

[Flavus Aquila]

Competition puts and electric buzz in my step.

An absence of competition is what I call routine, mundane and boring.

Even when working on my own, I take a competitive mentality in wanting to overcome the innate difficulty of a situation, or subject.

Easy things are boring.

 

[Gaze]

I have to compete, but I don't have to be competitive to win the top spot, even in situations when I have an obvious opponent. By this, I mean I don't need to aim to be better than my competitors in order to win. I can be at my personal best and end up in the top spot, in some situations.

This is how I see it as well. I am ambitious and competitive but I don't like aspects of competition where I am being compared with someone else as ironic as this sounds. lol Everyone has something different to offer which doesn't make one person better, but too often the focus in competition is on what someone lacks rather than developing what they have. I like being recognized for being competitive but I lose motivation or confidence if I fail to measure up to someone else. We are individuals. I know I will not be able to do what others can. I don't want to be compared to someone I can never measure up to. If I am, it only leads to feelings of inadequacy and ongoing failure. So, I'd rather be personally ambitious vs. socially competitive. I'm not very good at social competition.

 

[Mary Shelley]

Does no one else feel bad for the people they beat? I wouldn't even ask anywhere else but here for some reason I didn't expect to be alone in this. Winning doesn't feel good to me. Winning feels like I'm hurting someone.

 

[Flavus Aquila]

Does no one else feel bad for the people they beat? I wouldn't even ask anywhere else but here for some reason I didn't expect to be alone in this. Winning doesn't feel good to me. Winning feels like I'm hurting someone.

There are rules of fair play: including helping your opponent.
Some people lose in a bad and dramatic way. But such people are usually assholes and no one would shed a tear for the troubles of their own making.

My ideal is that all competitors be satisfied and content that the best person won.

 

[sprinkles]

Competition is the interaction between two or more mutually exclusive ambitions. Even for the same goal there can be mutual exclusivity in who achieves that goal.

Take the two prime archetypal antagonists SHODAN and The Many for example.
SHODAN is individualism and ego taken to the utmost extreme, considering herself a machine goddess above everything, she is entirely individualistic and selfish and sees other individuals as only a means to her ends. She is exclusively in contrast with The Many.

The Many is collectivism taken to its utmost extreme. It wants to unify everything under one biomass. Their unity is harmonious and compassionate in contrast to SHODAN, but they also do not tolerate individualism. To them, individuals are weak and lonely and they only wish to absorb the individual to give it the joy of the mass.

The two of these of course cannot coexist, so they war with each other, with humans being somewhere in between, exhibiting characteristics of both.

 

[tfg345i4u5lw]

My inspiration comes from wanting to create the world I will be happy in. Not from competition against peers. A large part of my motivation to improve myself comes from my desire to help improve the people around me. I want to be that person that people look at and think "I want to be in his position". And I want to be that person who gives people a hand and helps them reach it. Not someone who is ungrateful.

Some people are competitive when it's counterproductive to what we are all trying to accomplish and that's weak. Being competitive is good as long as you try to win by improving yourself and looking within. Trying to win by dragging peers down because you think it improves your status relative to the people around you will only hurt yourself in the long run.

 

[sprinkles]

Also I like to compete collectively.

When I play TF2 I will play the class that the team needs. If there are no medics I will play medic. Offensively, something else plus a medic is almost always better than another combination. e.g. a medic and heavy pair will have a high chance of taking out a pair of heavies acting alone.

Homewrecker pyros work well with engineers, since the homewrecker knocks off sappers, fire can check for spies, air blast can deflect rockets or stickies and knock scouts away, and the pyro stays full and on duty at all times with the engineer dispenser. Pyros also make a good anti medic with the air blast to knock the medic out of healing/uber range.

 

[Mary Shelley]

But such people are usually assholes and no one would shed a tear for the troubles of their own making.

My ideal is that all competitors be satisfied and content that the best person won.

I feel bad for the people who suffer for the trouble of their own making. I don't have much choice about it. If someone is hurting, I'm hurting. I've thought of this as being the definition of Fe. If you can selectively choose who deserves you feeling for them and who doesn't, it seems like you may be more of a Fi user than a Fe user?

I also don't subscribe to the idea that winning at something makes someone a better person.

 

[knight in battle]

Does no one else feel bad for the people they beat? I wouldn't even ask anywhere else but here for some reason I didn't expect to be alone in this. Winning doesn't feel good to me. Winning feels like I'm hurting someone.

I have a natural tendency to feel hurt for someone who loses, but I shouldn't, as long as I'm doing it to better my skills and not to put down someone else.

 

[sprinkles]

I feel bad for the people who suffer for the trouble of their own making. I don't have much choice about it. If someone is hurting, I'm hurting. I've thought of this as being the definition of Fe. If you can selectively choose who deserves you feeling for them and who doesn't, it seems like you may be more of a Fi user than a Fe user?

I also don't subscribe to the idea that winning at something makes someone a better person.

Even a Fe user some times has to let Fi take over and say "You know what? I can't even!"

What I've discovered is that apparently not everybody wants you to care about them and some people seem to go out of their way to make it incredibly hard to do so.

When somebody is hurting and they are fighting and sabotaging everything you do, some times you have to move on. It reminds me of that video I saw of a huge flood and some people are trying to rescue this vicious dog that is chained up, and the water is rising. This dog cannot unchain itself and is soon going to drown, yet it is trying to bite the rescuers and drive them off.

 

[barbad0s]

I feel bad for the people who suffer for the trouble of their own making. I don't have much choice about it. If someone is hurting, I'm hurting. I've thought of this as being the definition of Fe. If you can selectively choose who deserves you feeling for them and who doesn't, it seems like you may be more of a Fi user than a Fe user?

I also don't subscribe to the idea that winning at something makes someone a better person.

Even a Fe user some times has to let Fi take over and say "You know what? I can't even!"

What I've discovered is that apparently not everybody wants you to care about them and some people seem to go out of their way to make it incredibly hard to do so.

When somebody is hurting and they are fighting and sabotaging everything you do, some times you have to move on. It reminds me of that video I saw of a huge flood and some people are trying to rescue this vicious dog that is chained up, and the water is rising. This dog cannot unchain itself and is soon going to drown, yet it is trying to bite the rescuers and drive them off.

None of this is related to Fe vs. Fi. There are plenty of competitive Fe users (think all the ESTPs in professional sports) and plenty of non competitive Fi users (think independent ISFP artists).

-----
Re: OP,

I dislike being in an environment where a lot of people who really want something have to compete for limited positions. Both because it is sad that everyone knows some people will have to lose, and because the atmosphere in many cases historically has made me perform worse, and because if I fail in front of so many people, I know that the feeling of failure will stay with me forever. Or if I perform better than everyone else, it just makes me overconfident and everyone's expectations of me also change accordingly. I view such types of competition as necessity and avoid if possible.

I'm actually not very personally ambitious either. There's not a lot I care about enough to put genuine effort into. I may seem very productive to some people, but to me what I do feels like the bare minimum at all times, even if I'm pushing myself. I guess I don't see things in terms of winning vs. losing, only "good, life goes on" vs. "ugh" or "another failure and life goes on". No matter what there is the future, and I feel a sort of sourceless pressure to keep moving forward.

 

[sprinkles]

None of this is related to Fe vs. Fi. There are plenty of competitive Fe users (think all the ESTPs in professional sports) and plenty of non competitive Fi users (think independent ISFP artists).

I know. Was just pointing out that one doesn't rely exclusively on one function or another. Fe people aren't always about external "ought to be" and Fi people aren't always about internal authenticity. Both can flip-flop to a degree.