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71 Breaks my heart – competition
The stories
Article 55 quoted Zig Ziglar: “You can get everything in life you
want if you will just help enough other people get what they
want.” The emphasis was on relating to other people,
accommodating their needs and being flexible about cooperating.
The goal was meeting all the needs: yours and theirs.
Article 56 taught that self stands in the way. Putting self in the
background shifts the emphasis from personal gain to
social gain. Bridling the self improves interaction with
others.
36 and
37 discussed the benefit of teamwork in which a happy society
orders its priorities to save individuals from disaster. Looking
at housing supply and work force in the aggregate is a technique
for distributing both houses and jobs with minimum disruptions.
The individual laid-off worker is not alone when all of society
is looking out for her. There is a safety net because in a
small-scale disruption the overall supply is still adequate to
cover everybody’s needs.
Blend the actors
Take these ideas one step farther by
blending self and others. Instead of being discrete
entities that trade with each other, we shall all comprise one
social organism that facilitates collaboration. Instead of
being transactional (person-to-person), let’s be experiential
(living this moment together).
“I am getting what I want in exchange for
selling people what they want” changes to “we are getting what we
want by working together.” For some, this is painful. Can the
following illustration reduce the pain? I am happy to make sure
that everybody has healthcare because I am included in
“everybody.”
My most reliable access to healthcare is
cooperatively making sure that you have healthcare. This is not a
money exchange, not an employment. It is the benefit that accrues
when we are all included in the same social organism that
distributes healthcare. I have long said that what you give out
comes back to you (article 12).
Competition, good and bad
Competition as selfish materialism breaks
my heart. People sometimes confuse getting ahead of the rent
payments (which is good) with getting ahead of other people
(which is evil). In athletic competition, you do not run faster
than I do so that you can destroy me. You run faster than I do as
a way of helping me envision being faster. We agree with each
other that we are doing this so that we both will grow.
The business equivalent is companies that
improve the market by being efficient (education improving the
standard of living). On the other hand, the business equivalent
of unfair competition is reducing prices not by efficiency but by
wage gouging (greed reducing the standard of living). Selfish
competition hurts progress by sapping the strength of the
organism.
Back together
As a walking sunshine, I do not leave you
with broken hearts. My painful example is only the foil against
which we see how well off we are. The present economic stress has
made me thankfully aware that the food pipeline is still flowing.
I assume it will need help as people’s rainy-day funds give out.
The important fact is that farms still produce, and carriers
still deliver. It gives us the basics for survival. By engaging
in creative distribution, we cope with natural misfortunes to the
crops, not with profiteering on scarcity.
Human survival does not depend now on
eliminating all but the fittest. The Ernstraudian way looks to
the progress of humans viewed as a unitary organism. Our survival
and prosperity lie in the cooperation for which we are hard-wired
(articles 15, 41, and 58). We are getting what we want together.
Goal: disappearance of go-it-alone
There is common reference to the lobster
bucket that does not need a lid because the lobsters pull each
other back down. This does not mean to me that lobsters are
jealous and mean-spirited, preventing others from getting ahead.
I take the behavior to be almost a reflex, an attempt to move to
higher ground. It happens that the higher object is a lobster
that is not on firm footing. When the creature below tries to
gain footing on the one above, they both tumble under the
combined weight.
Humans are partially like these lobsters:
pulling down someone above does not produce a stable foundation
on which to build. However, we differ in that we can analyze our
footing. When humans deliberately pull down those on higher
ground, that is mean-spirited jealousy.
Cultivating excellence is not done at the
expense of others. The progress of those around us stimulates our
growth. We emulate success, we don’t envy it. The human pyramid
symbolizes cooperation and trust. When we stand on the shoulders
of those who went before, we are fulfilling the intent of their
endeavors.
Today’s message speaks to the
disappearance of go-it-alone attitudes.
Being For Others Blog copyright © 2020 Kent Busse
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