Competitive or Cooperative

What is the best preparation for life or career? Learning to be competitive or Learning to be cooperative?

Competition is relative, never an absolute. It is a function of the environment, the opportunities and the scope of applicability. Relative competition hazards the chances of encouraging low grade work of poor quality. For someone, who wishes to prepare for career, competitive attitude would be like going on a blind date. Frankly speaking, competition is good provided you know the level of your competitors. There is no joy in satisfying your ego by competiting with dunces.That would be pretentious and the gravest way to lose out on one’s career.Competition is an essential factor for most, saving of course the billiant and self-discplined lot.Competition helps one to redefine one’s limitations, raise the barrier beyond its level and push harder to achieve it with planning and unbridled efforts.In fact, I look at competition as a fitting substitute to complacency, as long as one understands that the outcomes of competition need not always be fair. Being logically aware of the situation and regular checks should suffice.

Winning matters to most while playing matters to me. There would be overlooking in the game and sometimes blemished decisions too.But, nevertheless they help you learn tackle uncomfortable situations and that’s where cooperation enters.

Cooperation in a competitive world may sound oxymoron-ish or an underlying hint for something unethical.It ain’t.It rather stresses on healthy competition with mutual respect among the competitors. That would make progress a two dimensional one at professional level i.e. vertical (down the hierarchy) and horizontal (among the peers).If you are wondering what the third dimension is , it is ethics.

We live in a dependent society where we are bound to satisfy our needs from several sources. This necessites cooperation and tactful dealing.For example if you are working on an interdisciplinary research project, you’ve got to collaborate with experts from other fields and cooperate with them. While there are certain needs which can only be achieved at the expense of the other, like getting admission into a top-notch university and here you’ll have to battle it out with the best.So, it is evident that both cooperation and competition are powerful factors in making one’s career as well as life.

Infact, I perceive competition and cooperation as two roads to the same destination of learning. Both of them encourage a person to develop from the current level, presuming ideal conditions. Ideal conditions here refer to the field, the context, the cause, the environment, the ethics and many such case-specific parameters.

The Russian Miracle Baby

For those of you who haven’t caught up with the news lately, let me give you an overview. It has been reported that a 9-month old Ali in Russia has Quranic verses appearing on his skin regularly. The medics have denied tampering of any sort and have concluded the apparition to be genuine. The scientific reasons behind this mystical phenomena are unknown. However, the speculation is rife that the world is about to end and this is substantiated by the kid’s augury.

I wonder in amazement.

This is not the first time that we have experienced unusual phenomenon.While some have remained enigmatic like this one, some were diligently explained on scientific terms.Owing to the above distribution, the scales now lie in mid-air for a commoner, confounded to tilt in favor of science or religion.Looking forward to hearing more news, to understand the subtle messages of nature.