Survival of the Fittest

A day or two ago, I spoke with a man in his 30s who had felt that, these days, the tides of competition are simply too strong, the youth too ambitious, and the world much too driven for success. “I’m tired”, he says, “I just don’t feel I could compete with young people like you anymore”. I could see the weariness in his eyes. But then, his next statement shakes me at the core: “Someday, you too will find a generation of young people who are simply smarter, faster and better than you–what will you do then?” Although I am technically still considered ‘young’, I do already feel this proverbial ‘generation of youth’ gaining on me, galloping with such speed and tenacity that I am forced to reconsider Herbert Spencer’s often misquoted notion of “survival of the fittest”.

What does it mean to compete? Is it necessary to compete? As I am enjoying my Summer Vacation in Sunny SoCal, leisurely watching the “Bachelorette” on ABC, I feel a persistent nagging in the back of my head of a few other friends: one at Johns Hopkins taking a full load of hard science classes, another working at Princeton, a third doing sales at Washington, and a fourth interning at Costa Rica–I am frigging watching”Bachelorette” on ABC. Granted that I don’t watch TV often and that was my first time watching the show–it’s quite entertaining, I have to admit–I am reminded of a score of other friends who are gliding silently ahead like a torpedo in deep sea. I could placate myself and say that I am building my writing skills through my blog, but in even this domain, I am no pioneer amongst those I know: just yesterday, I was introduced to a pretty substantial blog by a high school student whom I know of. The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote about the flattening of the world, of a global “free for all” competitive arena in which people from China and India are given more and more access to competing with anyone and everyone in the world. Before, I understood that as an abstract and distant theory–now I am feeling it.

So what does it mean to compete? Could I say, “I don’t want to compete, I feel self-sufficient and complete and whole and satisfied and content with life”? Maybe forty or fifty years ago when America dominated and most of the world was still developing I could, but nowadays, it feels that such luxury is retiring with the baby boomers. As an attitude, I could adopt the self-efficacy model of fulfillment; but as a fact of reality, I am forever relative to those around me. In many domains of the American society, it seems that having the attitude of contentment is an important element in being competitive since this state of mind brings a certain confidence that is crucial for being effective and getting ahead. Such is the paradox of existence.

So is life, in the hard, cold facts of reality, really a big competition? Or does it exist as a mere psychological construct? I might have to wait until my 30s to figure that one out.