Have we forgotten that life is not a game and we cannot be “motivated” by guilt, shame or fear to love ourselves and others well. Frankly, I think most of us are tired of the competition and any talk about rewards or punishments. Sure, mantras and motivational speeches are fine for sports but they do not give us the respect, purpose, truth and people that human beings need to be transformed from the inside-out.
The true-self doesn’t compete in life, because I understand my life to be more serious than a game and way less serious than a game. But that’s the natural result of being full of love, we know who we are and how we are designed, and it makes life so much more lighter and at the same time so much deeper. It is only living as our true-self and living in true-self communities that we discover our meaning and purpose that will enable us to become the people we are designed to be.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with competition in sports. However, when life is fragmented and reduced to a game and we must be judged a winner to have worth and acceptance, rather than enjoying the talents and skills that we all have, then we are in a game that we can never truly win. Winning is great in sports when we are moving to use our gifts to see what their limit might be but winning becomes a false-self labor of destruction when we will do whatever it takes (lie, cheat or hurt people) to win.
DeeAnn Dean 