Competition
I am a huge fan of healthy competition. In 7th, 8th and 9th grade, I had a very healthy competition going with a boy who was in my math class each year. We weren't friends, but we'd race to finish our homework first, and help each other when the other one got stuck. It was a great feeling. We both "won." Although I got a math award in 9th grade and he didn't, we both learned three years of math, and that's what mattered.
Last night I babysat for my friend's daughters. Before leaving, my friend told me the kids could have cake if they were well-behaved. We wound up sitting at the dining room table, while they ate cake and drank milk. The older daughter finished her cake first, and started lording it over the younger one. I asked her to bring her plate into the kitchen, and the younger one looked at me with worry; she was losing a race she didn't even know she'd entered. "You don't compete with food. It's not a competition." She smiled at me, and spent the next ten minutes taking the tiniest bites of cake you could possibly imagine.
Next week my law firm is having a potluck and everyone was encouraged to bring something. If they didn't want to bring anything in, they could just donate $10 instead. Attorneys are important people, who don't have time to cook for work. They're all just giving money. Except one baby attorney who is bringing some sort of fancy salad. But he's new, he'll learn.
Everyone kept asking what I'm making. Pumpkin bread. "Oh, are you making it or buying it?" When I'd answer making it, people would seem ashamed to admit they're "just" giving money. Why is everything a competition? Perhaps if I'd competed more I would be an attorney instead of a legal secretary?? Nope, I don't think so.
Competition for the purpose of improvement is great. I love the idea of competing against your best. But competition for the purpose of walking around thinking you're better than someone else because you baked and they took the easy way out by forking over cash is stupid, and kind of grosses me out.
Last night I babysat for my friend's daughters. Before leaving, my friend told me the kids could have cake if they were well-behaved. We wound up sitting at the dining room table, while they ate cake and drank milk. The older daughter finished her cake first, and started lording it over the younger one. I asked her to bring her plate into the kitchen, and the younger one looked at me with worry; she was losing a race she didn't even know she'd entered. "You don't compete with food. It's not a competition." She smiled at me, and spent the next ten minutes taking the tiniest bites of cake you could possibly imagine.
Next week my law firm is having a potluck and everyone was encouraged to bring something. If they didn't want to bring anything in, they could just donate $10 instead. Attorneys are important people, who don't have time to cook for work. They're all just giving money. Except one baby attorney who is bringing some sort of fancy salad. But he's new, he'll learn.
Everyone kept asking what I'm making. Pumpkin bread. "Oh, are you making it or buying it?" When I'd answer making it, people would seem ashamed to admit they're "just" giving money. Why is everything a competition? Perhaps if I'd competed more I would be an attorney instead of a legal secretary?? Nope, I don't think so.
Competition for the purpose of improvement is great. I love the idea of competing against your best. But competition for the purpose of walking around thinking you're better than someone else because you baked and they took the easy way out by forking over cash is stupid, and kind of grosses me out.
posted by Green at 11/12/2006 10:31:00 AM
7 Comments:
And when you lose, lose to the BEST.
Love this post and I am impressed (okay, delighted!) to know that you bake pumpkin bread.
We actually do food "competition" at our firm. (Ha!) Most of the time the baby attorneys and the secretaries bring in different dishes (usually set to some theme, i.e. desserts, soups, a particular ingredient) and there is a 'tropy' that gets passed around from office to office as the winners change. Mind you it is judged by the partners, and usually the winner happens to be an attorney. LOL Oh well. We all get a free lunch, there's some GREAT grandma cooks in our office.
Oh, lordy, Trader Joe's pumpkin bread mix is the bomb, with their awesome organic pumpkin that you have to put in it.
You are going to rock some attorney world, and if it were a competition, you'd totally win.
sing it, sistah. i agree 100%.
(btw i just made "pumpkin" bread with zucchini and hahahahahahahaha ari's eating it!)
I have to agree with Patti. If you're using that mix, you will win, hands down. Even though I understand that's not the point of this post :)
(Lucy's preschool teachers made it last week, and I not only ate the muffin she turned down, I snuck back to the table and ate like 5 more. And as a rule, I don't eat muffins.)
I hope there's a cash prize.
I love that you're in the winning group in this "competition" and yet you still see the competitive nature of it as silly. My firm had a cooking competition too, and I won, and now I feel kind of sheepish about how excited I was about it.
I hate competition. I am not competitive at all. I want everyone to win and do well, which is why I like teaching and why I hate Wide Lawns.
Also, I commend your comment on that "other blog." Just noticed it.
The whole competition thing is probably what causes certain bloggers to be such self centered bullies I think, and competitive people are always terribly insecure and unsure of themselves so they need the constant validation of winning or being better or getting over on someone.
There are many people who I could see fretting over pumpkin bread too. You can take it really far. I mean, what if you made it from a mix and someone else made it from scratch? What if someone else used fancier vanilla or special sugar or some exotic cinnamon? It just never ends and thats sad. What is the matter with people?
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