Quote of the Week...from Ernest Hemingway

There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow men. True nobility lies in being superior to your former self.                                                   ---Ernest Hemingway

The above quote from Ernest Hemingway, the great twentieth-century American author whose birthday is today, runs contrary to the overly competitive world around us.  Nowadays it's all about who's number one, or the best...and if you're not, you'd better get on the ball if you don't want to be replaced.  Our schools pit students against each other not only on the athletic field, but also in the academic classroom as they vie for college admissions and scholarships.  Victorious politicians often lord their entrusted authority over the very people they were elected to serve instead of trying to improve their lives. The attainment of wealth...even if it is accomplished largely through inheritance...is widely interpreted to be a yardstick measuring how superior one is to another...especially by those enjoying more fortunate circumstances.  And look at all of the competitive reality and awards shows on TV these days, repeatedly pounding home the theme that superiority over others is ultimately the only thing that matters.  I'm sixty years old now with some accumulated life experience and can confidently say, without a shadow of doubt, that the minute I start to think I'm better than someone else, I become acutely aware of how, in so many different ways, I compare poorly to them.  We all have places within our lives in which we shine...these are areas we're inclined to make public as we try to present the best possible impression of ourselves.  But in trying to be superior to others, we fall into the trap of turning interactions and relationships into a continual, wearisome competition.  Instead, as Hemingway pointed out, honest self-examination will direct us to a higher road...to improve our own whole being, including those areas generally hidden from the scrutiny of others...

I offer a caveat to this all, which is that there is nothing inherently wrong with competition...after all, other people who excel at things can be great models to emulate and they offer a way for me to be learn to excel when I follow their thinking and behavior, while staying focused on the goal: making myself a better person than before...

Thinking in terms of a life spent, not in trying to one-up the next guy, but rather in personal transformation, sounds very wise...but in following Ernest Hemingway's advice, I'm going up against a deeply embedded pattern within our society that idolizes competition and "winners"...