There Is No Competition
Picture a man named Victor, sixty-one, who spent thirty-one years as a regional sales leader. Every December a spreadsheet ranked the region by revenue, and every December he looked for his name, and it was at the top or near it.
Victor retires and moves abroad with his wife, Lena. On the first evening, over dinner in a small square, Lena asks what he wants to do tomorrow.
He opens his mouth to answer with a target, and nothing comes. He realizes he has not been asked that question in years without a number attached.
He thinks about it through the meal. Then he says, a little embarrassed, that he would like a walk by the river, bread from the bakery that has a line at seven in the morning, and two hours with a book on a bench.
Lena asks who else wants that. He counts. A few other people on the river path, maybe. A few in the bakery line, and the baker wants them to come. Nobody is trying to take tomorrow morning from him.
The things Victor competed for over thirty-one years were scarce. Only one person can be first on a ranking. Many of the things people say they want are of that kind: the top spot, the famous address, the table at the restaurant everyone has heard of.
Other things are not scarce. A quiet morning, a walk, a conversation that lasts an hour, a garden. One person having them does not use them up for anyone else.
I have a line I use: there is no competition. I do not mean that I am better than anyone. I mean that what Victor wanted for tomorrow morning is not the sort of thing people fight over.
You might say there are crowds everywhere, even at bakeries. There are. Crowds gather around what is famous. Victor’s bakery is not famous. It is good. A crowd follows a ranking, and a ranking exists only for things that can be ranked.
You could write what you want from an ordinary Tuesday. Beside each line, you could ask two questions. How many other people want exactly this? And does one person having it use it up? A line with a long answer to the first and a yes to the second belongs to a race. The rest might not.
Some items on your list may be races, and that is fine. Knowing which ones they are may help.
What is on your Tuesday list that nobody else is fighting for? Tell us in the comments. Someone reading may be about to write theirs.
Tell us in the comments