Tired of competing with those who insist on winning?

winning or losing.  It’s in neither of these.  Life isn’t a competition.  But some love winning that much, they cannot bear to lose.  When we compete with those who make winning their purpose and driver, we who do not think in these ways inevitably lose because we don’t think in stratagems, tricks, ploys, and devices.

If we cannot think like the malevolent,
we will never compete with them,
so why do we even try?

And the malevolent are self-defined
in making life about winning.

Now, to an important matter that we don’t even think of.  It is an incredible blessing to find ourselves created in a form of humanity that is incapable of operating in malevolence.

Seriously, so few really consider how blessed it is to be manipulated rather than be the manipulator.  If we find it beyond ourselves to compete, to strategise, and to develop tactics to manipulate and coerce people—because we’re not given to chasing power—we are blessed!

It’s a gift that we covet nothing of the power that causes people to abuse people.

You’re a blessing if you refuse to partake in the competitive power that causes people to abuse people.

Those who refuse to participate in the competitive push for power that abuses people are a blessing.

So if we are not like this, why are we intimidated to fight fire with fire, when we could otherwise fight a different game, a game that the malevolent cannot play because they are incapable of it.

Don’t bother competing with those who always win, because their first strategy is the woo us to fight in the game that advantages them.  Their first victory is getting us into THEIR arena.  We need to be savvier than that.  “Innocent as doves; shrewd as serpents,” and especially when we’re dealing with snakes, we can match malevolent shrewdness with a shrewdness that avoids feeling intimidated.

Depending on who we’re dealing with, one of our best strategies is the game of grey rock.  This is a tactic that is used to combat those behaving narcissistically.  This is about removing ourselves as a target, limiting our accessibility through invisible boundaries, and being otherwise unappealing.

You may wonder what I’m talking about when it comes to invisible boundaries.  These are boundaries that we maintain that are NOT communicated to the other party.  We cannot communicate anything with a person who insists on winning that would give them cause to compete with us.  We need to play a different game.  This game is the skillful use of knowing when and how to interact, agreeing beforehand with ourselves NOT to compete or contest any matter.  It’s just not worth it.

When the game is changed and it’s no longer about winning and losing, there’s agency and empowerment to be gleaned for the person not driven by gaining the upper hand.  There’s a lot of power in the resolution that says, “I won’t compete with you... you can’t fight with me... I won’t fight you... competing with you is NOT something I’m going to do.”

For those who exist to compete and to control,
their power is removed because we take that control 
away from them when we don’t compete.

We don’t need to agree and thereby get cornered in the dialogue.  There is a place for us in the dialogue where we neither agree nor do we disagree.  By not competing, we either engage in the matter at hand by divergence into one of the vast variables they’re not talking about, or we diverge onto another matter entirely, or we just don’t go there with them.  We choose silence if we can.  Or we can simply stand our ground and say we will not fight on this matter but depending on who we are dealing with that may have a limited level of success.

The key success factor is keeping the person who insists on winning perplexed enough that they don’t really know where they stand.  They want to win, and because they’re not able to get an easy win from us, they may turn their attentions to others, where there are easier wins.  From this vantage point, they are easier to observe.

The other point to make is, if their winning doesn’t affect us or anyone else, we can allow them to win.  Just so long as it doesn’t upset us or others.  Especially when it’s a case that being upset is a win for them.  But if winning is bad for a person, and it generally is, it’s best to love that person with the truth.

For those who compete for power, who must retain power, where all of life is about power and one-upmanship, what these people need least is our cooperation.  Our opportunity is to love these people with the love of truth, that it is not good for them to win all the time just because they play one game well.

We love people well when we augment an equal footing.

Be cautioned in this context, however.  When we continue to fight with people who love to fight, we’ll be tarred with the same brush.

Finally, if you find there’s just something about a particular person or relationship you just don’t get, it leaves you anxious, ask yourself if it’s a competitive spirit in the other person.  So often it is.