What is Competition?

I grew up as a nerdy church girl in small town Iowa. I was born in a town of 800 people where a lot of the old people (75% of the town) watched everything out their windows. When anything happened the phone calls started and every move got back to any parents that the community they felt like needed alerted. I have a lot of good memories going to my Grandma's house, the local swimming pool/park, and the town library. We did so many things as a family that were amazing. We spent a lot of time hiking or doing things outside, on the my Aunts farm, and exploring all the nearby towns.

When I was in 6th grade we moved to a town of 5,000 people and it seemed giant. It was next to an interstate and even had a McDonald's - which I thought meant we had moved to the city. I don't honestly have that many good memories in that town, it was a sport's town. In a way it was good, because a lot of kids I went to school with, including my brother, got scholarships at D1, D2,and D3 colleges. Some are still playing pro-today. It opened a lot of doors, but I also think that is because the kids got a lot of advantages. The town was farming and generational family business money, that meant that a lot of the kids were afforded many luxuries that kids across the country don't get. Every household was made to look picture perfect - you didn't want to be seen failing in the eyes of the Lord or the community. If you were seen failing, then everyone knew about it.

Side note: They were so good at sports because they started competitive travel teams that played 3rd grade through high school. You can think I am wrong, but practice time and quality coaches young are a huge leg up and a privilege to have.

My family jumped right into the religious community of the town. Each week we attended 2 youth groups, Sunday School, every expected and available church service, and confirmation when applicable. I went to the local Catholic school, even though we were Lutheran, from 6th-8th grade. My first day of school I was forced to wear boy shorts because my parents felt so uncomfortable with "how short those girls shorts are". Let's just say it wasn't the best start. I can't really fault my classmates though, I looked really fucking weird.

In the 3rd grade, at the Lutheran school, I was beat up in the bathroom after most lunch periods by a group of girls lead by the principle's daughter. So, when I walked into the emotional version of that bullying, I ended up not trying very hard and keeping to myself. Why force people to like you when you can just read?

I think that reading became my version of the internet, mostly because we didn't have the internet at that time. When the internet came to our house, my brother had started travel team basketball so we were gone a lot. The team played together from 3rd-8th grade every weekend from September through March and I was at every game. Anything to do with electronics growing up was heavily monitored. Forget about social media, cable TV, or anything outside of the first iPods until I was a junior in high school. I wasn't allowed to watch PG-13 movies, unless they were pre-approved, until I was 16. Looking back, it made it really hard to connect to the people I grew up with because they were always consistently talking all the time online, and in person, about things that I didn't really know.

I also think that this is why I take online/social communication so literally. Books tell it like it is and I appreciate that.

My brother and I grew up with high ass standards, both from our family and the community.

This town was a breeding ground of competition, no matter the expense, to what I found to be an extreme level. When I was on the girls basketball team, I remember that we would write "raps". It makes me laugh calling it that now because they were a very much pop songs mushed into a rap style and each verse was rooted in our teammates insecurities. We would rotate which people wrote the raps and they used them to tear into each other. I remember being so uncomfortable when it was happening, because every time after it was over people were left crying looking out the window. I did participate writing it once, but it left such a gross feeling in my stomach. I later wrote an apology letter to the girl who cried at the expense of the verse that I wrote.

Academics were just as competitive but I enjoyed that one. I think its because I kept reading and as a result I authentically love learning. Academics, for me, were less competitive and more fun. By high school I had probably read over a thousand books and didn't see an end in sight.

If you read this and think that I am angry about it, I'm not. I used to be, but I am not anymore. It was just a town of people re-acting to the pressures that extreme competition breeds. We had families feuding to the point that parents would take it out on the other families kids and not let them into parties at their houses. So fucked.

That competition also lead to that county having one of the highest suicide rates in the state when you look at the stats by county. A boy in my class tried to shoot his dad, a long-time greeter at our church, with a sawed-off shotgun while he was 3 feet away from him in their living room. Endless pressure has consequences. This is true in objects and in people.

That competition, that endless grind to be on the top, also leads to a lot of personal sacrifice of morals, self-care, and breeds a need for secrecy when you make mistakes. Failure is not an option - regardless of the community or personal expense.

If you read all of this and feel really bad for me, you shouldn't. Personally, I view it as a part of life that grew me into who I am today. I really like that person. This is also where I credit that Agape Love from the Holy Spirit. The cycle of bullying starts, and ends, with you.

I would also like to point out that the same things that are labeled bullying among children is labeled as abuse when adults do it - emotional, physical, and/or mental.

Even through all the hard parts, there are still a lot of good memories. My parents wrapped everything we did in a lot of love - from the times we had a little to the times we had more. Outside of the school year I spent every summer traveling between different houses of friends and family members. I had no interest in hanging out in a town that I didn't feel accepted in, so I got to see a lot of the world. Just kidding, I really just saw most of the state of Iowa - but nature wise it is pretty cool.

Competition is not bad, you need it to make you want to be better. However, competition should not be at the expense of other people's mental health. Stop using it as an excuse to tear people down because you don't want to do the work to get better. Sometimes growing up in that environment you can even normalize spreading hurt, it is easy to become part of the problem without realizing it. That is why we have generational cycles, but once you realize the impact you need to break that cycle or we are back on that slippery slope.

Also, maybe there is something else out there that you are way naturally better at and haven't tried before. Get out of your little world bubble and go find out what that is. There are so many cool things out there and we don't have to do what the people in our lives expect us to do or what our families have always done.

The point of life is living. Not running the rat race.