CHORONZON: I am a dire wolf, prey-stalking, lethal prowler.MORPHEUS: I am a hunter, horse-mounted, wolf-stabbing.CHORONZON: I am a horsefly, horse-stinging, hunter-throwing.MORPHEUS: I am a spider, fly-consuming, eight legged.CHORONZON: I am a snake, spider-devouring, posion-toothed.MORPHEUS: I am an ox, snake-crushing, heavy-footed.CHORONZON: I am an anthrax, butcher bacterium, warm-life destroying.MORPHEUS: I am a world, space-floating, life-nurturing.CHORONZON: I am a nova, all-exploding... planet-cremating.MORPHEUS: I am the Universe -- all things encompassing, all life embracing., Dreamlord?MORPHEUS: I am hope.
REMEMBER YOUR GREATNESSBefore you were born,And were still too tiny forThe human eye to see,You won the race for lifeFrom among 250 million competitors.And yet,How fast you have forgottenYour strength,When your very existenceIs proof of your greatness.You were born a winner,A warrior,One who defied the oddsBy surviving the most gruesomeBattle of them all.And now that you are a giant,Why do you even doubt victoryAgainst smaller numbers,And wider margins?The only walls that exist,Are those you have placed in your mind.And whatever obstacles you conceive,Exist only because you have forgottenWhat you have alreadyAchieved.Poetry by Suzy Kassem
Don’t let mental blocks control you. Set yourself free. Confront your fear and turn the mental blocks into building blocks.
They will hate you if you are beautiful. They will hate you if you are successful. They will hate you if you are right. They will hate you if you are popular. They will hate you when you get attention. They will hate you when people in their life like you. They will hate you if you worship a different version of their God. They will hate you if you are spiritual. They will hate you if you have courage. They will hate you if you have an opinion. They will hate you when people support you. They will hate you when they see you happy. Heck, they will hate you while they post prayers and religious quotes on Pinterest and Facebook. They just hate. However, remember this: They hate you because you represent something they feel they don’t have. It really isn’t about you. It is about the hatred they have for themselves. So smile today because there is something you are doing right that has a lot of people thinking about you.
The struggles we endure today will be the ‘good old days’ we laugh about tomorrow.
Those who achieve the extraordinary are usually the most ordinary because they have nothing to prove to anybody. Be Humble.
It's in those quiet little towns, at the edge of the world, that you will find the salt of the earth people who make you feel right at home.
Has she glanced you way yet?"Twice," Nick said on a note of satisfaction.Meaning?"Nick glanced at him. "She's not completely disinterested."I see Moreland. That makes it an even half dozen hanging out for a rich wife. Four looking for their second. Rossman, the old satyr, certainly isn't likely to be much competition. What in the hell does he think he's doing anyway? He must be sixty."Basking, I should think. She hasn't given him the cold shoulder yet," Nick responded coolly.
Life's trials will test you, and shape you, but don’t let them change who you are.”~ Aaron Lauritsen, ‘100 Days Drive
From this point forward, you don’t even know how to quit in life.”~ Aaron Lauritsen, ‘100 Days Drive
True friends don't come with conditions.
The high road of grace will get you somewhere a whole lot faster then the freeway of spite.
The highway of grace will get you somewhere a whole lot faster then the freeway of spite.
Be a team player, not a bandwagon jumper.
There is strange comfort in knowing that no matter what happens today, the Sun will rise again tomorrow.
The freedom of the open road is seductive, serendipitous and absolutely liberating.
At some point, you just gotta forgive the past, your happiness hinges on it.
We love our partners for who they are, not for who they are not.
Explore, Experience, Then Push Beyond.
Travel is costly yes, but it pays dividends too.
If you didn't earn something, it's not worth flaunting.
Without struggle, success has no value.
There is no such thing as loving a child too much.
It’s the ‘everyday’ experiences we encounter along the journey to who we wanna be that will define who we are when we get there.
Successes are those highlights of life we look back on with a smile. But it's the day to day grind of getting them that defines the laugh lines etched until the end of time. Enjoy each moment along the way
There's more to a person than flesh. Judge others by the sum of their soul and you'll see that beauty is a force of light that radiates from the inside out.
Building bridges is the best defence against ignorance.
Good becomes better by playing against better, but better doesn't become the best by playing against good.
Jillian had charged into the bathroom on seven, but she just shot straight to ten. Her nature may be reserved, but she didn’t take shit off anybody. “Don’t patronize me. And don’t you dare come down here and judge us!” She pointed her finger directly at AJ. “We’re the ones doing the heavy lifting, so people like you can come along at the very end and ride along on our coattails. You can act tough all you want, but it’s just an act, AJ. You, with your expensive suits and shiny shoes,” she sneered. “You wouldn’t survive one minute out there on those streets. You’re weak.” Before she realized what was about to happen, AJ seized her by the shoulders and threw her against the wall. Pinning her with her own body, she pressed her index finger over Jillian’s lips. “That’s enough.” Those glittering green eyes warned Jillian not to say another word. The impact had completely knocked the breath out of her. AJ pressed her body tighter into hers, preventing Jillian from taking a replenishing breath, so she breathed short shallow breaths through her nose. Her heart pounded. What was happening? She wasn’t in control of the situation, and oddly enough, for once she didn’t want to be. She had just been manhandled, yet she had no desire to fight back. Instead, she wanted to hook her leg around AJ’s waist and draw her closer to where AJ’s heat seared her core.
I don't compete against other women. To uplift others means I'm never looking down on them. I applaud their strength, and I remind them that we never know how strong we are until we are tested. And this life will test you... But it's not a competition. I want us all to make it.
You were born a winner, a warrior, one who defied the odds by surviving the most gruesome battle of them all - the race to the egg. And now that you are a giant, why do you even doubt victory against smaller numbers and wider margins? The only walls that exist are those you have placed in your mind. And whatever obstacles you conceive, exist only because you have forgotten what you have already achieved.
If you hold a candle close to you, its flame rises. And if you hold it away from you, its flame shrinks. The same way you hold a candle close to you, keep all your plans, aspirations, projects, and dreams close to you too. Do not share your plans or goals until you complete them, because as you hold your candle away from you — envy, jealousy, and resentment may put out your flame before it grows.
To succeed in this competition means finding yourself in a place where you call the shots and get the gains. This is not an easy feat, unless you are born into it. if you are not, you will need to out-smart your equals. You need to be more ambitious than they are. You need to work harder. You need to look better and smarter. You need to justify why it should be you and not them. It’s a competition.
I don't know where this pressure came from. I can't blame my parents because it has always felt internal. Like any other parent, my mother celebrated the A grades and the less-than-A grades she felt there was no need to tell anybody about. But not acknowledging the effort that ended in a less than perfect result impacted me as a child. If I didn't win, then we wouldn't tell anyone that I had even competed to save us the embarrassment of acknowledging that someone else was better. Keeping the secret made me think that losing was something to be ashamed of, and that unless I was sure I was going to be the champion there was no point in trying. And there was certainly no point to just having fun.
The phrase "it's better to be lucky than good" must be one of the most ridiculous homilies ever uttered. In nearly any competitive endeavor, you have to be damned good before luck can be of any use to you at all.
Once you embrace your value, talents and strengths, it neutralizes when others think less of you.
If there are still honest-smart men and women within those old and noble traditions, they should think carefully, observe and diagnose the illness. They should face the contradiction. Discuss the conflation. And then do as Warren Buffett and Bill Gates and many others have done. Choose the miracle of creative competition over an idolatry of cash.They should stand up..
I am convinced that the jealous, the angry, the bitter and the egotistical are the first to race to the top of mountains. A confident person enjoys the journey, the people they meet along the way and sees life not as a competition. They reach the summit last because they know God isn’t at the top waiting for them. He is down below helping his followers to understand that the view is glorious where ever you stand.
Life is not a competition. No one has to lose for someone else to win. A true blessing blesses everyone. A fragmented love which makes others lose will eventually turn upon itself and destroy the very thing which was being so carefully guarded. An open-hearted love will follow a course which can only lead somewhere good.
Most people do not mind having a house that is smaller and/or a car that is cheaper than their neighbours’, as long as they each earn and have more money than their neighbours, and, equally important, their neighbours know that.
Rather than reacting to every obstacle or dashed expectation, incorporate the event into your overall plan. Real life setbacks like rejections, broken promises, and unfair disadvantages will happen. Rethink the meaning behind the emotional triggers and how your reaction will further your purpose. Manage emotions by recognizing their place, but do not allow them to control your moves.
I hated reunions. It made myself felt so little afterwards. When I was there, I couldn’t help not knowing. But after I knew things, I couldn’t stop comparing. I was congratulating people when they told me the good news, but deep inside I was wondering whether their good news was better than mine. Life wasn’t supposed to be a competition, but it really felt like one.
We need to cease allowing the past to define us. We are evolving as a human race, and just because war and aggressive competition has always been a part of our heritage, that doesn’t mean we are forever destined to war and engage in aggressive competition.We are moving forward to a time when the heart will guide us. We once had to fight to survive, and some still do. Yet now it is time to lay down our weapons and open our hearts to the expansive potential of human compassion and creativity.Where our attention goes, energy flows. Do we continue to focus on opposition and give it our energy? Or do we begin to focus our energy on our own authentic freedom to shine and help to illuminate the world? The choice is ours.There are no mistakes – you are exactly where you need to be, and you were born with the precise gifts needed to transform a dying world into a thriving planet.
FORKED BRANCHESWe grew up on the same street,You and me.We went to the same schools,Rode the same bus,Had the same friends,And even shared spaghettiWith each other's families.And though our roots belong toThe same tree,Our branches have grownIn different directions.Our tree,Now resembles a thousandOther treesIn a sea of a trillionOther treesWith parallel destiniesAnd similar dreams.You cannot envy the branchThat grows biggerFrom the same seed,And you cannotBlame it on the sun's direction.But you still compare us,As if we're still those twoKids at the parkSlurping down slushies andEating ice cream. Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun (2010)
We are the bourgeoisie—the third estate, as they call us now—and what we want is a nobility of merit, nothing more. We don't recognize this lazy nobility we now have, we reject our present class hierarchy. We want all men to be free and equal, for no one to be someone else's subject, but for all to be subject to the law. There should be an end of privileges and arbitrary power. Everyone should be treated equally as a child of the state, and just as there are no longer any middlemen between the layman and his God, so each citizen should stand in direct relation to the state. We want freedom of the press, of employment, of commerce. We want all men to compete without any special privileges, and the only crown should be the crown of merit.
Might not too much investment in teaching Shelley mean falling behind our economic competitors? But there is no university without humane inquiry, which means that universities and advanced capitalism are fundamentally incompatible. And the political implications of that run far deeper than the question of student fees.
It’s not just tougher out there. It’s become a situation where the contest is how much you can destroy the system, rather than how much you can make it work. It makes no difference if you have a ‘D’ or an ‘R’ after your name. There’s no sense that this is about democracy, and after the election you have to work together, and knit the country together. The people in the game now just think to the first Tuesday in November, and not a day beyond it.
If anyone rises to power, it's not only because he could, but also because the stars were aligned in his favor. Many with apparent means to take it failed simply because they weren't destined for the honor
What is life? Life is living in this moment, experiencing and experimenting but experience isn’t life. Life is reflecting and meditating but reflection isn’t life. Life is helping and guiding but philanthropy isn’t life. Life is eating and drinking but food isn’t life. Life is reading and dancing but art isn’t life. Life is kissing and pleasuring but sex isn’t life. Life is winning and losing but competition isn’t life. Life is loving and caring but love isn’t life. Life is birthing and nurturing but children aren’t life. Life is letting go and surrendering but death isn’t life. Life is all these things but all these things aren’t life. Life is always more.
Female competition is when you are with a guy you like and you look around, see that you're the prettiest girl in the vicinity and feel a huge sense of relief that there's no one to take the attention away from you. (Female competition is a result of women feeling like their greatest sense of self worth , identity and influence comes from their sexual appeal to men. Many women don't even realise they are feeling this way and it's a subconscious thing, but they notice themselves getting jealous when they see other women who they think men would find sexually appealing.)
Together, we form a necessary paradox; not a senseless contradiction.
To gain your share of the market, you must show how your company is different and how your culture produces a unique experience for your customers, leaving no room for competition. And that, Bombshell, is your brand.
The problem is politics is made a sport, almost as much a sport as football or baseball. When it comes to politics, adults and politicians do more finger-pointing and play more games than children ever do. Too often are we rooting for the pride of a team rather than the good of the nation.
Remember, you don’t compete with anyone, you make them compete with you. You can control what you put on yourself; you can’t control what the other guy puts on you. So you focus only on the internal pressure that drives you. Run to it, embrace it, feel it, so no one else can throw more at you than you’ve already put on yourself.
When people want to win they will go to desperate extremes. However, anyone that has already won in life has come to the conclusion that there is no game. There is nothing but learning in this life and it is the only thing we take with us to the grave—knowledge. If you only understood that concept then your heart wouldn’t break so bad. Jealousy or revenge wouldn’t be your ambition. Stepping on others to raise yourself up wouldn’t be a goal. Competition would be left on the playing field, and your freedom from what other people think about you would light the pathway out of hell.
Nostalgia has a way of blocking the reality of the past.
Teams that spend a lot of time learning the tricks of the trade will probably never really learn the trade.
It is not a person or situation that affects your life; it is the meaning you give to that person or situation, which influences your emotions and actions. Your choice is to change the meaning you gave it or to change your response, in order to create the outcome you want.
Dignity will only happen when you realize that having someone in your life doesn’t validate your worth.
God gave us ground we created a city, God gave us time we need to create a future.
We're a society of brats, fighting over the same toys. That, for me, is the closest we come to be inherently evil as a people. It leads to selfishness, inflexibility, and impatience -- among so many other traits that are ugly and harmful. We're combative, competitive, petty, and suffer from one fatal flaw that I can never get my head around. We recognize behavior in others that makes us insane, while turning right around and doing the exact thing to someone else.
We're constantly judging and grading other parents, just to make sure that they aren't any better than us. I'm as guilty as anyone. I see some lady hand her kid a Nintendo DS at the supermarket and I instantly downgrade that lady to Shitty Parent status. I feel pressure to live up to a parental ideal that no one probably has ever achieved. I feel pressure to raise a group of human beings that will help America kick the shit out of Finland and South Korea in the world math rankings. I feel pressure to shield my kids from the trillion pages of hentai donkey porn out there on the Internet. I feel pressure to make the insane amounts of money needed for a supposedly 'middle-class' upbringing for the kids, an upbringing that includes a house and college tuition and health care and so many other expenses that you have to be a multimillionaire to afford it. PRESSURE PRESSURE PRESSURE.
And here it becomes evident that the bourgeoisie is unfit any longer to be the ruling class in society and to impose its conditions of existence upon society as an over-riding law. It is unfit to rule because it is incompetent to assure an existence to its slave within his slavery, because it cannot help letting him sink into such a state that it has to feed him instead of being fed by him. Society can no longer live under this bourgeoisie; in other words, its existence is no longer compatible with society.The essential condition for the existence, and for the sway of the bourgeois class, is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage-labor. Wage-labor rests exclusively on competition between the laborers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the laborers, due to competition, by their revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of modern industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.
Genuine self esteem – please understand this – genuine self esteem is not competitive or comparative. Genuine self esteem isn’t expressed by self-glorification at the expense of others, or by trying to make yourself superior to everyone else, or diminishing others in order to elevate yourself. Arrogance, boastfulness, the overestimation of your abilities, reflect low self esteem, even though we’re often encouraged to believe the opposite. In human beings, joy in the simple fact of existence is a core meaning of healthy self esteem. Thus understood, how can you possibly have too much of it?
Most people, the minute they meet you, were sizing you up for some competition for resources. It was as if everyone lived in fear of a shipwreck, where only so many people would fit on the lifeboat, and they were constantly trying to stake out their property and identify dispensable people – people they could get rid of.... Everyone is trying to reassure themselves: I'm not going to get kicked off the boat, they are. They're always separating people into two groups, allies and dispensable people... The number of people who want to understand what you're like instead of trying to figure out whether you get to stay on the boat - it's really limited.
When the fuel is dried up in a vehicle, it stops driving automatically. You are a vehicle in the spiritual and the physical world, so you need some oil for alacrity, in order to get to your destination. The greater the quantity of your oil, the more you cover the distance, and the more you cover the distance, the closer you get to your success.
I no longer follow the voices of the sane. I follow the ill because they see farther, feel much more and change what the sane will not. This is the paradox of philosophers---trying to understand mass delusion among great people that have faith and knowledge, yet they can’t graduate from their institutions of religious theology to apply the knowledge they have gained for the shifting of Zion---- from words to action; from comfort to uncomfortable; from self serving to self giving; from competition to supporting; to tradition to unity; from bias to acceptance; from me to us.
We all judge. But when I realize that judgmental thoughts and actions are merely my primitive nature trying to "protect" me from being one-upped or making sure I am not one-upped, it makes it easier to laugh at my silliness. �
...it is the fear of the past; a fear not merely of the evil in the past, but of the good in the past also. The brain breaks down under the unbearable virtue of mankind. There have been so many flaming faiths that we cannot hold; so many harsh heroisms that we cannot imitate; so many great efforts of monumental building or of military glory which seems to us at once sublime and pathetic. The future is a refuge from the fierce competition of our forefathers.
Empowered Women 101: Only an insecure woman with control issues will look outside her relationship and say other people are to blame for her husband's lack of focus, love and respect. A real woman knows that the problem isn't other people; it is her man. If he truly loved you he wouldn't have ever made you an option and went looking for what he felt you didn't have. Don't waste your time trying to convince someone to see your worth by destroying others. There will always be someone prettier, smarter, more spiritual and more accomplished than you to distract this person. A real woman knows her worth and will never have to train anyone to recognize it.
I don't understand women that call themselves a "bitch". It doesn't empower a woman. Rather, it reveals to everyone that you were deeply hurt at one time. Because of the pain your still carrying, you will continue to hurt anyone that reminds you of those moments when you let your guard down and were fooled. Sadly, it sends a clear message to the observant that you are still hurt. If only women would realize that "we all" have moments of stupidity then they would stop comparing themselves to the masses.
Social media is like reunion, but the catching up is done through the comfort of your own bed. Scrolling through photos and statuses are too easy to not be done. You know about their social life and where they’ve been last weekend. Then you wonder why they have such flawless hair and make up. How could they look so effortlessly awesome?
Don't compete with your friends to win a date with few beautiful girls, but compete to win few beautiful goals.
Chasing a man is not winning. The only thing you win is the loss of your dignity. Confidence is knowing your value, instead of expecting a man’s love to provide you with value.
The source to low self-esteem is the lack of control you feel you have in your life. If you spend your life competing with others, trying to make right the wrongs done to you, or waste your time trying to look right, you will never achieve contentment and emotional balance. People you encounter in life can’t be controlled by you. You only have control of yourself. Build your life around a relationship with a higher power and achieving what you’re passionate about. When you let go of what you can’t control, true peace can then enter your life. This is the path to achieving emotional balance.
Competition may help us create better products and services but in the end competition really seeks to destroy the opponent. To put him out of the power to compete against you.
At a career peak, there is certainly the specter of competition from below, but just as importantly, there’s the risk that if we aren’t on a curve that satisfies us emotionally, we may be the cause of our own undoing.
I’ve watched my dad move our family from extreme poverty to extreme wealth and then everywhere in between. Never once did I see or hear him be anything but a cheerleader for the accomplishments of others. It didn’t matter if he was down or up in life, he wanted everybody around him to succeed. I’ve even watched him praise the very people that have tried to destroy him over the years and then very publicly wish them success and happiness. He taught me the enthusiasm that should always come at the success of others. He constantly taught me that when others succeed, it gives us all more opportunity to succeed. He taught me that when there is conflict, minor or major, you can almost always walk away at the end with a handshake.
The term cartel was virtually unknown to the American language a generation ago. Like most borrowed words, when first taken over it meant different things to different persons. Time was required to crystallize its meaning. In this country it now commonly refers to international marketing arrangements. In a companion study we have defined such a cartel as an arrangement among, or on behalf of, producers engaged in the same line of business designed to limit or eliminate competition among them.
A true friend does not make you win by making you the winner to the detriment of the true winner. He makes sure that you become a loser, not because he likes the way you fail, but to enlighten you on how it feels to be treated that way and to demonstrate that love and respect are not exclusive.
Whenever you should doubt your self-worth, remember the lotus flower.Even though it plunges to life from beneath the mud, it does not allow the dirt that surrounds it to affect its growth or beauty. Be that lotus flower always. Do not allow any negativity or ugliness in your surroundings destroy your confidence, affect your growth, or make you question your self-worth.
Managers’ responsibility is to ensure that people deliver the expected results, which are the company’s strategy. The company’s strategy, in turn, determines its competitive advantage. So, if a manager does a poor job of motivating employees’ productivity, the enterprise is a weak competitor.
In my philosophy, I think churches should not argue and be greedy with money. I think different churches like the synagogues, mosques, and Christian/Catholic churches should focus on bringing peace in the world and not compete. I know in today's world, people are defending one religion to another and try to show off. Has God, Jesus, or the disciples mentioned about competition in the Bible? I don't think so. Because if we compete, we turn to selfish needs and be greedy. So whatever religion you're in, have faith in it as much as you can and help others. Because in every religion I know, you have to give back the poor and have peace in your mind.
Walter Scott has no business to write novels, especially good ones. — It is not fair. — He has fame and profit enough as a poet, and should not be taking the bread out of other people’s mouths. — I do not like him, and do not mean to like Waverley if I can help it — but fear I must.
[Lizzie Bennington to a reporter who has asked for her opinion about Jack Archer's celebrated thighs.] “When you come back from a set down and bring the match to a final set tiebreak and are a point away from winning the match, only to have what looks like an extremely fit player call a time out because of a cramp and then watch that player sit back and casually converse and laugh while you do your best to keep your mental focus and your body moving so you don’t grow cold and cramp yourself, I hardly think you’d concern yourself with his burgeoning manhood, let alone his thighs!
There is a scene in one of the Rocky movies where after the match Apollo Creed and Rocky are waiting for the scoring of their brawl all beat up and battered, obviously both fighters gave all they had to win, and Apollo Creed says to Rocky - "Your not getting a rematch" and Rocky says "I don't want one".I love that scene. That's when you know that you left no doubt - that your opponent, win or lose, never wants to compete against you ever again. That's fighting.
Good tennis players are those who beat other tennis players, and a good shot during play is one the opponent can't return. But that's not a truth about life or excellence -- it's a truth about tennis. We've created an artificial structure in which one person can't succeed without doing so at someone else's expense, and then we accuse anyone who prefers other kinds of activities of being naive because "there can be only one best -- you're it or you're not," as the teacher who delivered that much-admired you're-not-special commencement speech declared. You see the sleight of hand here? The question isn't whether everyone playing a competitive game can win or whether every student can be above average. Of course they can't. The question that we're discouraged from asking is why our games are competitive -- or our students are compulsively ranked against one another -- in the first place.
Oh,” she breathed. “How silly I’ve been.”“How silly we’ve all been,” said another of the wives. “We shouldn’t be fighting each other. Our problems don’t lie in any of the relationships we have with each other.”“The problem is our entire social system,” chimed in another.
In every competition, it's not just a great deal of talent that you need. Everyone who joins have that or else they would not be so confident to be in the race. Focus though is the one thing that most people don't have. So you have to stay the most focused. Do not stray from your goal. If you want to win the game, you have to be in the game.
Further, the same Arguments which explode the Notion of Luck, may, on the other side, be useful in some Cases to establish a due comparison between Chance and Design: We may imagine Chance and Design to be, as it were, in Competition with each other, for the production of some sorts of Events, and many calculate what Probability there is, that those Events should be rather be owing to the one than to the other.
As Pacific Ocean nations, competition and cooperation between the two nations will create a new atmosphere—leading to the Birth of a ‘Pacific’ New World Order—that is more engaging and less confrontational; this can be characterized by the presence of force without war.
She transcends her sport, which is what any sport needs...And she does it while smiling the whole time. It's kind of a joke, but then again it's not, especially if you're a male pro trailing in her wake. To have this woman in the middle of such a suffer fest out there crushing people and smiling all the way...
In the technological world...it is no longer a question of dominating nature or society in order to be more free or more happy, but of mastery for mastery's sake, of domination for the sake of domination. Why? For no end, precisely, or rather: because it is quite simply impossible to do otherwise, given the nature of societies entirely governed by competition, by the absolute imperative to 'advance or perish'.
Google, you fucking ripped off the iPhone, wholesale ripped us off. Grand theft. I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this. They are scared to death, because they know they are guilty. Outside of Search, Google’s products—Android, Google Docs—are shit. [Steve Jobs]
As these contrasts show, capitalism has undergone enormous changes in the last two and a half centuries. While some of Smith’s basic principles remain valid, they do so only at very general levels.For example, competition among profit-seeking firms may still be the key driving force of capitalism, as in Smith’s scheme. But it is not between small, anonymous firms which, accepting consumer tastes, fight it out by increasing the efficiency in the use of given technology. Today, competition is among huge multinational companies, with the ability not only to influence prices but to redefine technologies in a short span of time (think about the battle between Apple and Samsung) and to manipulate consumer tastes through brand-image building and advertising.
Competition is often conflated with capitalism, but they are not at all the same. Capitalism involves private ownership of the means of production and distribution, but the word implies nothing about the way in which privately owned firms do business. Capitalism is perfectly compatible with a society in which a powerful state doles out favors to private monopolies, protects some enterprises from others, or even sets the prices privately owned firms may charge for their products. Indeed, while capitalists tend to praise the virtues of competition, many of them would just as soon avoid it.
Homo economicus was surreptitiously taken as the emblem and analogue for all living beings. A mechanistic anthropomorphism has gained currency. Bacteria are imagined to mimic "economic" behavior and to engage in internecine competition for the scarce oxygen available in their environment. A cosmic struggle among ever more complex forms of life has become the anthropic foundational myth of the scientific age.
Angelina, I think of you as my friend, the dearest of friends, and it tortures me to go against you, but now is the time to stand with the slave. The time will come for us to take up the woman question, but not yet.""The time to assert one's right is when it's denied!
In each case, the relative cost of postponing the purchase for buyer and seller determines the intensity of competition between the [past and future] selves of the seller. If the buyer has a lower cost of postponing the purchase (delay, making do with an interior model) than the seller (inventory, staff salaries) the buyer has the bargaining power.
When you walk in distinction, you don’t compete with anyone but competition wants to compete with you.
...if the verses are for a literary competition, your grace should try to win second place; first is always won through favor or because of the high estate of the person, second is won because of pure justice, and by this calculation third becomes second, and the first becomes third...
Moderate giftedness has been made worthless by the printing press and radio and television and satellites and all that. A moderately gifted person who would have been a community treasure a thousand years ago has to give up, has to go into some other line of work, since modern communications put him or her into daily competition with nothing but the world's champions.
To succeed in this competition means finding yourself in a place where you call the shots and gets the gain. This is not an easy feat, unless you are born into it. if you are not, you will need to out-smart your equals. You need to be more ambitious than they are. You need to work harder. You need to look better and smarter. You need to justify why it should be you and not them. It’s a competition.
Instead of playing to win, I was playing not to lose. It reminds me of the story I once heard about two friends being chased by a bear, when one turned to the other and said, "I just realized that I don't need to outrun the bear; I only need to outrun you.
He had a simple maxim for all competitive or adversarial situations: work out what the other party least wants you to do, and then do it. Relieving your feelings was fun, but the best course of action was to make things as difficult as possible for the person trying to make things difficult for you.
What distinguishes a true competitor from a mere participant is that the competitor derives enjoyment from the nature of the competition aside from the prize at the end. She gets a rush from the gaming dynamics and appreciates the beauty of the game. At the end of the day, you play for the love of the game or not at all.
Any vigorous competition will entail at least two elements: offense and defense. Offense is the effort you put into scoring against your opponents, and defense is the effort you apply to stop them from scoring against you. Those who suggest that "a little healthy competition can't hurt" are thinking only of the offense part....The offense component of internal competition is problematic, but the defense component is always injurious. When peer managers play defense against each other (try to stop each other from scoring), they are engaging in anticooperation.
There is no such thing as "healthy" competition within a knowledge organization; all internal competition is destructive. The nature of our work is that it cannot be done by any single person in isolation. Knowledge work is by definition collaborative.
To the consummate competitor, winning is not the same as beating your opponents. Winning is playing to your absolute best; beating others is a corollary effect, not the primary goal.
CHORONZON: I am a dire wolf, prey-stalking, lethal prowler.MORPHEUS: I am a hunter, horse-mounted, wolf-stabbing.CHORONZON: I am a horsefly, horse-stinging, hunter-throwing.MORPHEUS: I am a spider, fly-consuming, eight legged.CHORONZON: I am a snake, spider-devouring, posion-toothed.MORPHEUS: I am an ox, snake-crushing, heavy-footed.CHORONZON: I am an anthrax, butcher bacterium, warm-life destroying.MORPHEUS: I am a world, space-floating, life-nurturing.CHORONZON: I am a nova, all-exploding... planet-cremating.MORPHEUS: I am the Universe -- all things encompassing, all life embr
HERMIAGod speed fair Helena! whither away?HELENACall you me fair? that fair again unsay.Demetrius loves your fair: O happy fair!Your eyes are lode-stars; and your tongue's sweet airMore tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear,When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.Sickness is catching: O, were favour so,Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go;My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye,My tongue should catch your tongue's sweet melody.Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated,The rest I'd give to be to you translated.O, teach me how you look, and with what artYou sway the motion of Demetrius' heart.HERMIAI frown upon him, yet he loves me still.HELENAO that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill!HERMIAI give him curses, yet he gives me love.HELENAO that my prayers could such affection move!HERMIAThe more I hate, the more he follows me.HELENAThe more I love, the more he hateth me.HERMIAHis folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.HELENANone, but your beauty: would that fault were mine!
Is the competition really some mythical beast? No, not really. Knowing how to play your group of salespeople as a team, to overcome the group objective of winning the customers support, is the objective. The opposing team in proper viewpoint is not just the similar competing business to yours. Nor is it the competing franchises of your home office.No, in order to really be effective in the market place as a surviving business, you must go beyond that philosophy. You must be willing to expand your viewpoint to fully understand who the competition truly is. Your true competition is simply this: Anywhere that your customer would spend his or her dollars as opposed to spending them at your company or place of business.