I found the following except from a book I am currently reading pretty interesting and decided to share….

Competition is, of course, important and valuable. It calls forth new energies that help people move forward, be creative, and grow in competence in their own domain. But if competition can have value, we also see the inherent danger in a society based on competition.  In such a society there are few winners, many losers, and even more victims. Some people gravitate to the top; others drop into the pits of depression, jealousy, and anger — anger with themselves, their parents, society, the church, God, everyone who seems to have cheated them out of happiness.

When we are made to feel inferior through a lack of respect for our deepest needs, we often begin to accept the vision of the powerful and to believe that we are inferior, that we should just do what we are told. We submit to those who have power, lose our self-esteem, and enter into a form of depression. We might also want to become like those who have power, copying their values and aggressive  attitudes and developing a sense of ourselves that is based on oppression of the weak — or maybe we will close up in anger and revolt against those who have power. Either way, we can lose faith in ourselves. Rather than developing and deepening our own vision of life, we use up our energies in obeying or attacking others and their system of values. When we lose ourselves, it is much easier to latch onto what is outside than what is inside — easier to identify ourselves against an other, than to search within our deepest needs and yearnings…..

An excerpt from the book, Finding Peace, by Jean Vanier

Onward, with HOPE

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