A Meditation on My Relationship to Competition

I love a good competition. As much as I love to make art and tell stories, I love competition in it's own right! Striving for a prize really brings out the best in me. And it's fun!

I've always been really competitive. Come to think of it, wanting all the A's and all the awards and recognition is the whole reason I excelled in high school, in all those subjects I didn't care about at all. High school was one big contest to me! Art school was different. I had to evaluate why I was doing what I was doing- and the reason was certainly not to be better than everyone. That endeavor would be laughable! I was surrounded by incredibly gifted people. They were also incredibly kind, and they made me see that I didn't need to strive to be the best at art. All I really need to strive for is to be the best at being me!

Competitions are the closest thing I can find to fill the void once occupied by school assignments. I'm proud that I'm detaching from the school frame of mind, though. It's a very tough thing to do; you've got to stay motivated solely by what's within you! Again, I return to the thought: I've got to strive to be the best ME that I can be! Does that mean I should compete against myself? Wait... how would that work?(Mind pretzel!) I'm sure I could figure it out!!

Thanks for tuning in!
As Serena Tsukino says, "I'm outie!"
^_~