Good morning. Happy Sunday!
Let's talk about competition. Is it good or bad?
In the American culture, and perhaps most westernized societies, we grow up thinking competition is a healthy thing to have and to foster in our young. Isn't that what makes people strive to be better? Competition?
But is it really such a healthy thing?
What if we were to look at competition in another light. What if we could see competition for what it really is, another form of separatism? What if we recognized that every time we participate in competition with another we are forgetting that we are all One.
This tradition of competing against others for everything is not going to make our world a better place. On the contrary. Isn't it competition...global competition...that creates war? Competing for resources. Competing in religious dogma. Competing for power. Competing in weapons. Competing in...well, you get the idea, I hope.
It starts at a very early age. My baby spoke at 1 year. Her talented child walked at ten months. And his two year old already speaks a foreign language. Why is this necessary? Why does it matter? What are we trying to prove?
It's all about the competition. If we can help our children succeed early in life, which usually means somehow being better than those around them, then they are ahead in the game of life. They have the tools they will need in a competitive world. They will make it. They will survive. The more they win, the more successful they become.
Isn't this the predominant message in our society? Competition is what it's all about. Who is smarter, thinner, richer, prettier...who has the best job, who makes the most money and who has the most stuff? I guess they win. But what do they win?
Happiness? Satisfaction?
This need and drive to compete has blinded us to what really matters. We can't even begin to build a meaningful, sharing community without taking a long hard look at what role we are playing in the competition game.
While we may think we are fair and just and act humanely, if we take a closer look, we will see it, the negative traits of competition: jealousy, low self-esteem, righteousness, elitism, separatism...
It all comes back to them against us. When we get right down to it, we don't really want to share our resources anymore than anybody else. Do we? When we are all struggling just to get by it becomes very difficult to take another look at our own behavior, and really examine what is going on.
But, it does not have to be this way. We don't have to be competitive. In fact the more we release the need to compete, the easier it gets. If we don't, I'm afraid humanity is doomed.
As we clutch our resources closer, and fight off potential enemies, we are driving the competitive machine. We have forgotten that we are all in this together, that we are all One. We all live and breath and share the air and water and food. When we fight over these resources, we are creating a world of greed and hatred.
Isn't every living person entitled to clean air, clean water and clean, edible food? Shouldn't that be a human right? When did these simple and basic necessities become commodities? When we started competing and hoarding our resources.
There is a huge error in the human mind. I suffer from it too, quite often. It is the belief in lack. But it doesn't even really exist. It is a construct of the mind, like time.
Abundance is the natural order. The world is filled with abundance, and there really is enough for everyone. If we began to loosen up and let go of those things we feel the need to clutch close to our being, we would see the abundance all around.
There really is enough food to feed everyone on Earth. There is. There is enough space for everyone to live. There is. There is enough.
Unfortunately, there are a few that would have us believe otherwise. They gain at our expense. If they can keep us in competition, we fight for resources, paying more, working harder, and keeping the capitalist/ consumerist machine going, making a few richer and richer while the rest of us continue to struggle to get by.
It isn't necessary.
We can find joy in simplicity. Less is more.
There is joy in sharing the abundance. There is joy in giving extra things to others who need them. Then we have some, and they have some too. And, we just made a friend instead of an enemy.
But what about how hard I worked to get what I have, you might wonder?
Okay. I hope you have everything you need. But, I know you don't. It never ends, this desire to have more, to be better...this competition.
It only stops when we stop it.
It's time.
Love and light to all.
~Rev. Kerry
"The world has enough for everyone's needs, but not everyone's greed," --Mahatma Gandhi.
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