Competitive Compassion

Competition produces wonderful human advancements and is a source of great pride.  But not all competition falls in this category.The Boomer generation has been widely recognized as a cohort who likes to compete. Career competition was fierce and for some continues to be. Playing sports like tennis and golf was and remains an outlet to strut your stuff.  Then along came retirement and the birth of the competitive retirement.  

In normal times retirees claimed bragging rights focused on travel. How many vacations are you taking this year? How many countries have you traveled to? How much money did you spend? It didn't stop there. Name the category and you could find competition.  In its extreme some people even hurt their friends feelings and lost some along the way just to win the retirement game. Darwin would say it's normal.  Perhaps.  Now we have the competitive vaccine game. Think the Hunger Games 2021!!

Some of the comments we've heard or seen on social media include:

"I stayed on the computer for three days to get an appointment."

"I drove nine hundred miles to get mine."

"I flew fifteen hundred miles and got mine two hours after I landed."

"I hired someone to spend the time on the computer getting an appointment. I'm too busy to do it myself."

" What do you mean you haven't gotten a shot yet? You must not be trying." 

There is enough anxiety with Covid-19 ravaging the world. People's lives have been turned upside down and for some that includes the loss of family or friends. So Let's make a new competition: Competitive Compassion. It's a team sport we can all play. Being kind, supportive and nurturing in an age of disruption and chaos is the best sport we could ever play. Let's run up the score and banish the competitive vaccine game.