We are all told in one way or another, from the beginning of our lives, that life is competition. Whenever you look around it seems that we have to compete and fight for everything that we want. Science tells us that evolution, which is the fundamental law of life, is competition. But is this true? Or perhaps a better question is; is competition the best way to win in life?

As a child growing up you were most likely put in competitive situations early on. Whether you were fighting for crayons with a sibling or whether you were engaged in some kind of little league sport, you were seemingly competing from the cradle. This early competition is usually a type of head-on frontal assault where we engage our rivals in a face-to-face confrontation. While this might be great strategy as a child, simple and straightforward and seemingly quite natural, as you grow up it become obvious that this strategy can sometimes be quite self-defeating. The reason for this is that as we grow we find that head-on competition is too simplistic to win many battles. Indeed it could be said that if you’re openly competing with anyone, you most likely have a fifty-fifty chance of winning at best. The reason for this is that advanced strategy always tells us that subterfuge and disguise are what truly win battles. Open engagement means that you failed to position yourself properly in the field and now you are facing head to head battle. This happens because you were not smart enough to get what you wanted through advanced thinking. Seen in this way, competition can be seen as poor choice of action.

While the above paragraph might allow many to see that competition, at least head to head competition, is bad strategy and therefore not worth the effort; you must realize that nature does not really compete. While many evolutionary biologists might think that I speak sacrilege, from a spiritualistic point of view, you realize that nature never competes, it just flows. While looking at nature from the surface it might seem that it’s all fang and claw out there, but higher metaphysical concepts take it for granted that there’s much more going on at a spiritual level. What is meant by this is that while through physical eyes we only see the final outcome, before this outcome came to fruition there were many internal choices that were made. For example, the lion did not catch and eat the zebra because in a competitive environment he was better than the zebra and other predatory competitors; that certain lion killed and ate that certain zebra because nature made a choice that involved balance and a grand cooperative venture between every single creature in the savanna, and the world. Nature balances itself by creating this incredible dynamic that feeds and grows from itself. The lion is not just one single individual fighting against the entire world, he is one small part of a great whole that works together in an infinite flow of life and death. There was no competition therefore, there was only choices, made by a greater whole. The problem for us is that our physical senses were only able to see the seemingly torturous final outcome.

While animals follow instinct and the dictates of nature perfectly, men do have the ability to consciously choose. This might sometimes make you feel like you are one individual against the world, but you must realize that you too are part of this whole and that while you do have complete freedom of choice you are also supported by an incredible natural environment that does not compete. Looked at this way, you can see that when you do compete you are actually not going about things in the right way. Conflict then is the final results of the accumulation of prior choices. If you find yourself in a face-to-face struggle with someone then, you must realize that you got there through a number of choices that you made before the situation became real physically.

A better way to go through life then is not through competition but by allowing yourself to flow just like nature. In order to do this you must learn to relax into life. Try to get over your fight or flight feelings and realize that often these feelings are there because of a belief. This belief is the one that tells you that life is struggle and that everyone is out to get what you have. Learn to feel at ease with others. Most importantly realize that it will always be better to create than to compete. You create by choosing what to believe and focusing on what you want; letting life naturally take you into the best circumstances possible. In this way, getting what you want is as easy as plucking an apple from a tree.