Competition

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We live in a competitive world. In the military, people get promoted based on how they compare to their peers. The very people with whom they work, sleep and eat – their friends, colleagues and teammates who hold their lives in their hands – are the competition.

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And it isn’t confined to the lifelines. Competition between commands is just as intense, since Commanding Officers are ranked against other Commanding Officers too.

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The competitive undercurrent is enough to cause people to do strange things. Some work harder. Some become tyrants. Some resort to less respectable methods to get the upper hand.

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When I retired, I thought I was done with all that. With no more fitness reports to worry about, it was time to focus on the family and enjoy watching my daughter grow up.

But tonight I saw her race. It wasn’t a big deal, really, just a bunch of kids running around a small church gym. In today’s world of “everyone gets a trophy” I was content to smile and clap for everyone, regardless of how it turned out.

She won.

I was not prepared for that. She smiled at my wife and me, and I gave her a “Kirk- Gibson-hitting-a-walk-off-homerun fist pump” before remembering where I was. I got ahold of myself and gave her a discreet thumbs up.

Then she won the next race.

It was almost impossible to hold back the urge to stand up and start a one man wave, or point at her and say, “BOOM! Who’s the girl? WHO’S THE GIRL!”

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It must be in our DNA. Maybe the competitive spirit has always been there inside of me, or maybe two or three decades of competition in the Navy planted it there. I don’t know, but it is something I will probably have to wrestle with forever. I need to relax, see the joy in every day, and take up activities that help me calm down.

Like golf.

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