Pumpkin pie and philosophy

So as I was walking to class today I was eating a piece of pumpkin cream pie and I had an epiphany. Here it is:

The reason gen y-ers are having difficulty entering the adult world is due to a lack of competitive spirit. They have been raised in a society which has all too often told them that there are no losers. Everyone is a winner just for being involved. Competition is bad and we shouldn't measure ourselves against others. The problem is that the real world doesn't work this way. It's pass-fail and you've got to be in the top group to pass. Average people have average opportunities and average success.

Without a internal drive to compete, we lose a large source of internal motivation. Without it, our ability to achieve long term goals becomes compromised as we distill them down to things like "being happy" of doing something "for fun". Happy is good, but happy in the short term doesn't equate to happy in the long term, and sometimes you just have to suck it up. That's a lot easier to do if your goal is winning, because short term suffering is seen as common and necessary. If we only work at something when it's fun, we fail to put in the time working when it isn't fun, and we advance less in a set amount of time.

Now, I'm not saying we should all be hyper competitive. Nor am I saying it's the only valid source of motivation. I'm simply saying that it can be a major source of internal motivation and without it we are less likely to work as hard, which means we are less likely to advance our skills, abilities, etc, and thus less likely to achieve at the highest levels.

We hear that the U.S. is losing its global competitive edge. Maybe that's because we aren't all that competitively minded anymore.

So here's my philosophy. Always play to win. If you lose, then use the experience as a learning opportunity so that next time, you win. Caveat: No cheating. It will most likely catch up to you in the end.