We are used to thinking of competition as comparing ourselves with others (rectius: competing against them!).
Who comes first, who earns more, who achieves the best result.
In short: what matters is coming out on top.
It is a simple, immediate and readily visible way of looking at things.
But an incomplete one.
We can beat others and still have done worse than we did yesterday.
We can come first, but in a modest field, and still have delivered a mediocre performance.
We can come last, but against exceptional competitors, and still have achieved the best result of our lives.
The finishing order tells us whom we have beaten.
It does not tell us whether we have improved.
This does not make competition with others pointless; quite the opposite.
A strong opponent forces us to raise our game.
A capable colleague forces us to learn; a difficult problem forces us to develop abilities we did not know we had.
Other people matter precisely because they put us to the test.
But this is where the perspective changes: from opponents, they become benchmarks, sources of motivation and challenges.
The real comparison is with what we were capable of doing yesterday.
Winning, therefore, does not necessarily mean that we have improved; and losing does not necessarily mean that we have failed.
The question is not, “Who did I beat today?”, but, “What am I capable of doing today that I could not do yesterday?”
It is a more demanding measure.
But a more honest one too.
There will always be someone faster, more capable, richer, more brilliant or more experienced than we are.
And even if one day we managed to surpass them all, there would still be one opponent left.
Others determine how difficult the race is.
But the real finish line lies just beyond the person we were yesterday.