With the Olympics going on, competition has been on everyone’s mind. We all have our favorites and who we want to win. With all this competition and debating going on, it is even easy to let competition into our own lives. Competition can be fun and it can even build and strengthen bonds and relationships, but it can also hurt those same bonds and relationships. Competition between a game amongst friends and family is okay to have, and can be beneficial for social skills, however, in the scenarios below, competition can become dangerous and harmful to relationships and us.

When we compete to outdo someone with material things. You look over and see that your neighbor has a new car that happens to be a sports car. You then notice that the old car you’ve been driving is your first 2002 Honda Civic that you bought yourself. You start wishing that you had what your neighbor has or how to one up him; to be better. You lost focus on the fact that you earned that car yourself and that it gets you from place to place. This leads to feeling shame towards what you have and being envious to what your neighbor has.

You are at work and you notice your coworker has been a little more productive than you today. So you start moving at a faster pace to equal or double the amount of work that they have produced. You have now added extra stress on yourself because you were making your quota at a decent pace. You also have not taken into consideration that its quality over quantity, so some of those forms that you just filled out, maybe messy or even incorrect which can cause problems for others, or slow you even further down because you have to redo them.

When we compete with others on a more personal level, it tends to have negative effects on us as well as friendships and employment. It stresses us out which can lead to health problems and other mental health risks that can cause problems for our coworkers and even our own productivity level within a job. Competing against others in life can make you bitter. You start seeing everything as a personal attack on you and what you are doing. The only person that you should ever compete with is yourself, and that’s to be better than the person you were yesterday.

It is fine to have competition for certain things in life, in fact, it’s considered healthy for certain social aspects. Watching a sports event with friends and family, playing cards with friends and the Olympics are all fine examples of this competition. When it intrudes into your daily life is when it becomes harmful and something to watch out for. That’s when the friendly and social benefits get overthrown by the negative aspects that can harm those friendships in your life, impact other coworkers in the workplace and cause health risk towards yourself.