Spiritual Bookshelf Episode 73 : The Practice of Being at Ease—Escaping the Trap of Competition and Comparison Part 6

Hi everyone, welcome back to "Spiritual  Bookshelf." I’m your host, Phillip.In today’s fast-paced world, it feels like we’re always running. Running to work, running to meetings, running to hit that next KPI. But have you ever stopped to ask yourself: Are we working this hard to "fulfill ourselves," or are we just trying to "outrun everyone else"?Think about it—for most people, when they picture the "office" or the corporate world, they see a "zero-sum game." They see rankings, cutthroat promotions, and those dreaded performance reviews where it feels like one single mistake means you’re "out." It feels like if you relax for even a second, you’ll be stepped over by the person behind you.But Kishimi stops us right there. He warns us: If you define your work—and by extension, your entire life—through the lens of competition, you are signing up for a race that never ends. In that logic, there will always be someone younger, faster, or with more resources. If you stay in "combat mode," you can never truly be at peace because you’re always looking over your shoulder, worried about who is catching up.Speaking from my own experience as a CFO in the high-tech industry for many years, I’ve seen this "combat mode" play out in boardrooms and offices alike. We often think that being the most competitive makes us the most valuable, but in reality, it often just makes us the most exhausted.Next, Kishimi makes a point that might sting a little, but it’s incredibly honest.He says that often, the person hitting the brakes on our professional growth isn’t our boss or the economy—it’s actually us. It’s so easy to complain about unfair management or a toxic office culture. And sure, those problems are very real. But Kishimi asks us to look at the moments when we choose to be conservative or to back down because we’re afraid.Why do we do this? Because if we don’t give it our absolute 100%, we have an excuse ready if we fail. We can tell ourselves, "I didn’t really lose; I just wasn’t really trying." It’s a defense mechanism to protect our fragile egos. We would rather stay stuck than face the possibility that we gave it our best and still weren’t "good enough." But once you see this clearly, you start to take your power back. You realize you are in control of your effort, even if you aren’t in control of the outcome.We’ve been conditioned to think competition is just "how the world works." However, when you treat your colleagues like "rivals," your internal state is always in "combat mode."You become obsessed with what everyone else is doing: Who stayed the latest? Whose report looked flashier? Gradually, your focus shifts away from doing the work well and moves toward "just not losing to Joe or Sarah."When your main goal is just to beat someone else, your vision becomes incredibly narrow. You stop being creative and stop taking risks because you’re terrified a mistake will make you look bad compared to others. This is exactly how creativity and innovation get crushed under the weight of social pressure.Finally, Kishimi points out that confidence built on comparison is dangerously fragile. If you’re happy today only because your numbers were higher than your colleague’s, that happiness is on "borrowed time." What happens next month when they outperform you? Your self-esteem becomes a roller coaster that you can't control.I used to see this all the time with financial targets and performance metrics. If your sense of worth is tied only to being "Number One" on a spreadsheet, your peace of mind will disappear the moment the market shifts. True confidence has to come from something deeper than just a higher ranking.As we wrap up today’s episode, I wonder: Does that "stone of competition" sitting on your chest feel a little lighter now?Work should be a way for us to contribute to the world and fulfill ourselves, not a battlefield that