Prompt: Do people have to be highly competitive in order to succeed?
Response:
Success is defined as the attainment of goals; if everyone could succeed, the idea of success would be redefined. This is because, by nature, only a small percentage of people actually succeed. As a result, people are forced to vie for those spots, pit themselves against their fellow man in order to grasp at success. Evidence of this is pervasive throughout history and life.
Consider the standard form of grading in most colleges and high school courses: the curve. The curve redefines success as compared to the other classmates, eliminating personal accomplishment and directly forcing peers into competition. Success becomes the question of “how much better am I” rather than that of “how skilled am I.” This comparative nature of classes redefines success as ability to compete, forcing people to be extremely competitive in order to attain any measure of success.
The same idea is present as an undercurrent in the greatest force in history: warfare. The war is perhaps the most clear example of the idealogy of compete-to-succeed. The losers of many wars were massacred, often thoroughly wiped off the planet. The intense competition of battle, upon which their lives were stakes, represented the ultimate form of vying for success, as the loser would be denied any further chance for success, through death.
Finally, the most essential natural force, that of evolution by selection, is based on the core principle of competition for success. Darwin, in his great text “On the Evolution of Species,” states that Mother Nature herself uses the idea of pitting members of a species against each other in order to determine the most fit, the most successful, and only those survive.
Competition for success runs in our veins. It is the reason we, as Homo Sapiens Sapiens, are here as a species. It is the reason we are at the top of the food chain. It is present in everything we do, and is the driving force in our evolution. For billions of years, the successful have been selected to reproduce; we are their legacy. We cannot undermine the very reason for our existence, for it defines us. We must embrace competition to succeed, as it will be as integral to our future as it was to our past.
I noticed I spelled “ideology” wrong, and screwed up Darwin’s title, but apart from that, I think it’s quite solid. Please grade from 2-12. Thank you!