Winners and losers.

“So, did your class win?” I asked my 11-yr old after she excitedly told me how her class had put up the best show at a recent event in their school. “No, we all won”, she said with a hint of disappointment in her voice. I waited to see what she would say next. “What’s the use of that?” she asked looking at me with a mix of indignation and irritation. “We needn’t have worked so hard if we knew that everyone was going to win. Now, we are at the same level as those who did not make any effort at all!”

My daughter, if you did not gather already, is competitive. She comes from a family of competitors, a culture of competitors even.

Competition, where we come from, is good - it helps you improve and keeps you motivated to do things to the best of your ability.

That is quite different in the culture we live in now. In the Netherlands, competition seems restricted to high level team sports. In schools, generally, everyone is encouraged and credited equally. The underlying value is to uplift the “underdog” and not give too much admiration to the achiever. 

And of course, that takes getting used to when you come from a competitive culture like India, where everything from sports to grades to art is meant to be a competition.

Does your culture encourage or discourage competition?

#mondaymorningculturalmusings #interculturalliving