Competition

Whenever I'm in the mood to lecture some of the young folks, I've always told them the story of competing in a foot race against other people. Immediately after the start gun, everybody starts running, and as the race progresses, you realise that your rivals are gradually leaving you farther and farther behind. What would you do? 

There are three possible reactions. The first is the simplest, i.e. just give up and stop running immediately. The only possible outcome of this choice is a certain defeat, period. The second choice is to just run at the same speed till the end. If the rivals are also maintaining their respective speeds, chances are they will continue increasing their lead over you until they cross the finish line. The third option is to try to run faster, somehow, in the hope that you can catch up with the competition, and who knows, maybe even overtake them. It's the hardest choice to make because it usually involves a lot of efforts. But even if in the end you can't win the race, maybe you won't be the last to cross the finish line. There is a chance that you might be able to overtake at least some of the runners.

And that is essentially what happens in life. All of us are actually in a race against each other on a daily basis, and in most cases, whether or not one can finish in pole position will depend on which of those three choices above that one opts for. We see the same thing in school, in the job market; in practically everything we do.

However, there is actually another possible choice to make, and that is to try to beat up the opponents' legs so that when their legs are injured, they won't be able to run so fast. It will then be easier to beat them in the race! It's not what one might call an honorable way of winning. But some people are not honorable anyway. If they can win, it doesn't really matter to them how they achieve it; winning is winning to them.

Therefore if a coconut farmer discovers that his customers are no longer buying from him—that they are buying from other people instead at a cheaper price—the immediate reaction is not to find ways to increase production efficiency to compete at the new prices; rather, find ways how to stop the competition from competing by urging the government to "look into the matter and put a halt to imported coconuts to safeguard the local coconut industry."

Winning a race against injured or crippled opponents, or winning a business venture due to monopoly power served by the government on a silver platter, is not really winning. This sort of success is only a success for as long as the protection is there. It's almost like buying a lottery ticket knowing the winning numbers before they are revealed.

If you want real victory, then fight a real fight. Real victory is much sweeter and satisfying.