Competitive Family Values
Even within national cultures, there are family cultures. You don’t really think about it when you are a kid, you think all families are like your family. It isn’t until you get older that you understand just how unique – even quirky – your own family is.
In our family, we were bred to be competitive. We started early, with simple card games and board games. We swam on swimming teams, we competed for grades. Doing well, doing our best was expected of us.
And then, we turned around and did it to our own children!
We used to have big family reunions in a small town along the Oregon beach. We stayed in an old complex, where there were two large units that shared a deck, and then several small cabins. The very social parts of the family shared the two large units – my mom and dad, and her brother and his wife – and the rest of us had the cabins, one to each family, althought the kids roamed from cabin to cabin – our children have always had the freedom of belonging to one great tribe!
Daytimes would be full of adventures – not everyone doing the same thing, but smaller groups having dodge-boat competitions, groups going on shopping expeditions to nearby towns, hiking in the parks, having some beach time – jumping the amazingly high waves in the amazingly cold Pacific ocean.
Around 5, people would start to gather on the big deck in preparation for dinner. Dinner might come out of the kitchens, or we might order food in, but once dinner was out of the way, the BIG competitions would begin.
Every year there was a huge hearts tournament, and a Liar’s Dice tournement. The family took these very seriously, from oldest to youngest, everyone entered, everyone competed. We took it so seriously that we had trophies that would be engraved with the winner’s names and passed along from year to year. We took it so seriously that sometimes there would be injured feelings when someone lost. Everyone wanted to be the winner, and in a family full of people used to winning, feelings ran high.
Giving up needing to win all the time has been seriously hard. There are still times when I am in a situation where I feel the adrenelin start pumping and I have to stop myself and say “Do you want to win this battle or do you want to win the war?” i.e., like chess, sometimes you have to sacrifice a pawn to achieve a greater victory down the road. Do I need to win every arguement at the cost of losing a friend? Do I need to win at the cost of my community?
I also think needing to win takes its toll in one’s health – when I allow myself NOT to need to win all the time, I feel calmer, more serene, and happier. I can’t help but think that being calm, serene and happy are probably good things to be in terms of health. Competition gets your heart beating faster, pumping through the veins, but can also take it’s toll in bad eating, bad sleeping and bad exercise habits.
My parents did a good thing encouraging us to be our best, to seek personal excellence and to strive for personal achievements; I honor them for that. When it comes to winning, however, I want to stop and count the cost before I proceed full steam ahead.
What does your family value? What attributes did they encourage you to develop?
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I was competitive when I was a kid but that stopped pretty early on. It got replaced with a sense that you have to be discrete about your achievements – not out of modesty, although modesty is a wonderful thing – but out of this Egyptian saying:
Cover your candle so that the its light doesn’t go out.
My translation is probably off but you get the point I definitely got the sense that you need to do that as you grow older. I can’t remember where I heard this or read this but I remember someone saying this and it really struck a chord with me:
Do you want to win or do you want to be happy?
Ironically they’re not always the same thing.
our most valued value: think for yourself and dont follow others blindly.
lol its gotten to the point that our family heirloom is an old book called “the art of contrary thinking” 😛
“quirky” aint got nothing on us hahaha!
Excellent insight, 1001. And what values does your family hold dear?
Hey Skunk! I don’t think anyone would ever accuse YOU of following the crowd! Are you then a contrarian investor? Isn’t that what Buffett is?
hahahahah 🙂 I LOVE these memories. What I remember most clearly was that one of the tournament winners was almost always … Grandma! Reserved, quiet, ladylike – and ruthlessly poker-faced when shooting the moon!!
I’m not sure that what we have can be blamed on mere competitiveness, though. With our family I’m not sure that its as much an issue of us _needing_ to win as us _knowing_ that we are RIGHT :-D!
*dying laughing*
You are so right. She is killer. Hearts, Scrabble – and she never LET us win as kids, we always had to beat her legitimately, bless her heart!
As for the second part – knowing we are right – AAARRRGGGHHHHHH! Where does that come from??
You know I’ve been thinking about your question on and off since yesterday and I don’t think there’s any one value I can think of LOL. I think we were all taught to be very sociable though and that it’s very important to create a good impression. Other than that we all joke a lot.
Really your question caught me off guard!
Oh Zin, you made my day. You know how many times you have made me think from another perspective? Your blog is SO good that way.
In your first response, you mentioned modesty, and in the second, sociability. so when you couple the two, I would guess your family culture highly values good manners. Would you agree?
And we joke – and laugh – a lot, too. Alhamd’allah!
I guess so! I just thought that was most people’s families 😀
Thank God for families that can laugh! How else can you get through the hard times?