Recently my competitive streak, something that has long slumbered, has come to the fore and I’m struggling to reign it in. I was a little too excited when I beat by buddy at Yatzhee the other month and positively full of myself when his stratagems failed to stop me crushing him utterly before the buzzer went on our timed game of risk. I’ve even upped my game at the gym since wifey started running.
There is a bit of a dichotomy in my approach to competitiveness and progress really. I’m often happy with the status quo and to gently pootle around but if I decide I want to fully engage with something, I’m in trouble and it becomes a bit of an obsession. I recently spent two hours playing one particular track in Mario Kart 8 because I knew it was possible to do a lap in 50 seconds as I had done it, so it stood to reason that I should also be able to do 3 consecutive laps in that time. It didn’t go well.
Of course the problem I have is my competitiveness/obsessive nature tends to only get focussed on things that interest me. If I had such a drive to learn the intricacies of FRS102 or decorate the house from top to bottom…