Richard Goodale answered my questions related to his ideas about
competition:
> Do you believe that people need to have an opponent in order to perform to
> their greatest potential?
Yes. Because "opponents" set standards against which one can measure how
well one is achieving his or her particular potential. They can even
increase that potential by illuminating and demonstrating benchmarks of
performance that one had never thought possible before.
> If so, do you feel this is true of everyone, or perhaps, most people?
Yes. Everyone. Everyone has standards, implicit or explicit. Everyone
benefits from exposure to different standards, whether they be higher or
lower.
Richard, I agree that everyone can learn from others but I disagree that
everyone needs an opponent.
Was Mother Theresa trying to win a competition to sit at the right hand of
God?
Who was Gandhi's opponent in quest to free India from British Colonialism?
Did Georgia O'Keefe paint from morning until night in her desert retreat
in order to outshine Pablo Picasso or Alexander Calder?
Truly great people live and act from a sense of purpose in life or a
calling to service. Their decisions and actions come in response to an
inner voice. Competition and comparison of their performance to others
may have been a stage in their development, but fortunately for all of us,
they grew beyond that stage when they began to listen to that inner voice.
Still learning to listen,
Roxanne
-- Roxanne Abbas mailto:rabbas@comp-web.com http://www.comp-web.comLearning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>