Competition and Competitors: Sunday musings…3/15/2026
1) Cowin. I’ve learned a lot about economics (and sideways about politics) from reading the economist Tyler Cowin’s lighter non-academic writing. Today I came across this gem: “After eating a meal at one restaurant, walk to another one for dessert.” Double your dining experience for the price of a short walk.
It’s always a good day, a better “musings…” when I can borrow a nugget from a brain like Cowin’s.
3) Mountaintop. Cillian Murphy was interviewed on one of the Sunday morning news shows today. I think it was CBS. He was asked about pressure after a momentous win, in this case his Oscar for Best Actor (Oppenheimer). Did the win, did reaching the top of the mountain decrease the pressure to perform at some level, or having won one Oscar did it increase the pressure?
Murphy gave some non-answer about the freedom to explore the depths of subsequent characters or some such. One wonders, though. Does the win bring with it permission to simply enjoy that which you do so well? Or does it spike the appetite for more winning? More below.
3) Measure. Some 10 years ago I wrote that my competitive juices had dried up. My long sojourn in the CrossFit universe confirmed that.
It’s been 8 or so years since we left the CrossFit world. At the moment the great annual egalitarian CrossFit experiment, the CrossFit Open, is presently taking place. Several hundred thousand people “compete” against one another over 5 weeks in the run-up to the CrossFit Games. Like golfers who play “against” one another by playing the same game on the same course, everyday athletes get to “compete” with the pros.
I miss old friends who were not involved in the mess that became CrossFit, Inc. at its end, and I miss my old CrossFit gyms and the early years on CrossFit.com. I don’t so much miss the competition side of the CrossFit universe, though. Folks don’t get hurt on the 11th hole of The Ocean Course trying to best the lore of Rory’s latest visit. The “Gamesification” of what really should have remained what it was at its outset–a revolutionary way to train for fitness–resulted in unnecessary injury risk during competitions or unreasonable competitive atmospheres in gyms.
At some point in a life, likely every life, the only remaining athletic competition that matters, no matter what your competitive field might be. is “you vs. you.” More below.
4) 90. Humans sleep in cycles of ~90 minutes. Each cycle is centered by an interval of REM sleep, the deepest type of sleep. There is some teleological thought that the natural tendency to be wakeful at intervals is a vestige of our hunter/gatherer origins, a brief time to assess threat before continuing to rest.
Our best sleep over a night is one that is an even multiple of our particular cycle (it’s not precisely 90 min. for everyone). Beth and I have known this for some time, and I have tried to time my sleep/wake schedule to coincide with either 4 cycles (6 hrs.) or 5 (7.5 hrs). Multiple factors intrude on this strategy of course (alcohol intake, age, gender), and multiple outside agents conspire to make it more difficult (sunrise, canine appetites, spousal sleep).
In our over-scheduled/over-pressured world I am not advocating an intense evaluation of sleep, or any particular method of doing so. Though I will have to admit that my deep curiosity about sleep and recovery/next day preparedness persists. At the moment I am wearing a Whoop 24/7 to gather data, but I am adding an Oura ring at night because I like the depth of data acquired on sleep (graphs for heart rate and HRV vs. a single measure). This despite the profoundly annoying consistency of the result that the only real agent affecting my sleep is alcohol.
Rather, I am simply noting that there is both a quantity and a quality metric if one does evaluate sleep, and for that matter rest in general. This applies to both competition and the comings and goings of our daily lives. Recovery, your level of autonomic preparedness for the day ahead, is worthy of your attention.
5) A moment ago I made mention of my competitive juices having run dry. That’s only partially true. It’s probably more accurate to say that I have chosen to de-emphasize the competitive aspects of most of my activities.
For certain this does not include the existential threats that surround my business, my vocation, those competitors who would gladly contribute to its and my demise. In that arena I am certainly as competitive and driven to win as I have ever been about anything. In this arena my battle simply is one of waning energy and the ennui of competition that ever waxes. No unknown and unknowable at 3, 30, 300 or even 3,000 or 30,000 feet here.
Competition here is now an internal competition, not unlike my fitness pursuits, with a bit of the serenity prayer thrown in. How can I continue to become even a little bit better at the blocking and tackling in my day job? How can I lead my tiny little enterprise to do the same? How can I apply the wisdom to know the difference between those things I can and cannot meaningfully affect and apply my efforts solely to the former?
What has changed for me over the years is the incessant, all-consuming need to win at everything else. Not desire mind you, but need. I grew up in one of those hyper-competitive families where everything was a game to be played and every competition a zero-sum game in which you only won if someone else lost. I had to win. It seems like everyone in the town I grew up with did. We all had to win.
We competed for EVERYTHING. Board games, backyard basketball, philosophical discussions. Everything. Seriously, at the dinner table at home there would be blood drawn as we wielded our knives and attacked a new tub of butter in the race to make the first mark.
Now? Not so much. I find myself drawn away from all sorts of quasi-competitive activities, fearful that I will either feel torn about letting loose my competitive devil, or having done so feel badly about an all-out assault toward victory. Some competitions are so silly that they simply cannot be taken seriously; these I enjoy deeply. I once “beat” a buddy in a deadlift WOD by 0.5 seconds by my account, and he “beat” me because his bar was 40# heavier by his. I “won” a game of “Cards Against Humanity” by expertly playing the “Tasteful Side-Boob” card. That kind of stuff.
At a recent wedding I received one of the most meaningful, simply lovely compliments of my entire life. One of our long-term friends shared how wonderful she found my support for Beth’s equestrian passion to be. It was very touching and I will cherish not only the fact that she felt this, but that she shared it at a table filled with other long-time friends. Honestly, I probably get more credit than I deserve for this; how can you NOT get behind the person you love more than anyone or anything when they find their passion pursuit, something they just burn to do?
As with so many other things, Beth has been an example worth following when one thinks about and examines competition. While competition of some sort exists in every family, competition as foundation was not the thing in Beth’s family growing up. Her parents were both educators; I have gently teased that their goal was to raise poets while for my parents it was raising barbarians. Still, when the time came at age 47 or so to embark on an athletic pursuit that is inherently competitive, dressage, Beth has consistently sought improvement in her performance, not her podium standing.
Blue ribbons in a small class are fine, but a new personal high score is cause for celebration regardless of where she lands in the standings.
A middle ground exists, of course, but it seems to be one I personally am not very good at identifying, at least for myself. There are times when I burn to compete. Times when all I want to do is win. As I have evolved and become aware of the risks of collateral damage in zero-sum contests (somebody has to lose) my impulse is then to turn away. I miss the joy that is to be found in the game for fear of the consequences of the unbridled quest for victory. How does one find that space in which the competition itself is enough? Once upon a time I was very good at competing. At some point when the competition is against a PR or some other goal you have already achieved, you realize that the very best you can do is to not lose.
And I think my problem is that I’ve not yet found a way to make that feel like winning.
I’ll see you next week…
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