Unit1

Competition and Cooperation、

Warm-up

1. Do you think it is necessary to compete with others to make a success in the society？

Give examples to illustrate your reasons.

2. Do you need to cooperate with others to succeed in the society？ Can you share your experience that cooperation leads to a success？

3. Which do you think is more important， competition or cooperation？ Why？

Text A Success Isn’t a Competition

The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation. —Bertrand Russell

As a blogger who has found some success amongst the seemingly endless sea of blogs， I’ve had to confront some old and rusty ideas I used to have about success and competition. I examined these long-held beliefs early on in my blogging career， and discovered that they were false. What I learned has helped me tremendously and these ideas can be applied to many fields of work and many areas of life：

1. Striving for success does not require competition.

2. Boosting others actually helps you， in the long run.

3. Envy of others’ success and trying to tear others down helps no one.

The last one probably sounds obvious， but is also the idea that’s least used in reality by many people. For some reason， many of us get jealous when others are successful， and we try to tear the person down. We belittle them for their success， we criticize unfairly， we bad-mouth people， and we become obstacles to their further progress.

It’s utterly illogical， and yet you can find it everywhere in life， in many different cultures and industries. How does someone else’s success become a bad thing for other people？ This is a concept I’d like to explore a little today， and I’d also like to take a look at the converse： how boosting people actually helps you. Blogging， for example， is not a zero-sum game1. If I gain readers， it doesn’t mean you’ll lose readers. In fact， if we as bloggers link to each other， we can help each other gain readers at the same time. Helping other bloggers， in that sense， does nothing to hurt you as a blogger. You aren’t competing for readers， even if you’re both trying to get the same readers， because readers can read multiple blogs. Sure， you might say that readers can only read so many blogs， so we are competing for their limited attention. But that’s a very limited and limiting view. That’s assuming that there’s a very limited pool of readers with a small amount of attention. That isn’t true： there are lots of blog readers out there， and even more， there are many non-blog readers who will soon become blog readers， and that number is increasing all the time.

We aren’t competing for readers—we’re all trying to gain readership， but we can do that together， cooperatively if we like. Or we can compete and tear and claw at each other. This concept can apply to many other industries. I’ve been a writer in the field of journalism， and while some journalists think it’s a competition—you want to beat others by getting the story first or you’re competing for limited jobs—I never agreed. We were all striving for the same goal： to tell the truth， and to get useful information to our readers. In that light， journalists can cooperate， and some of them actually do cooperate. Sharing of information is good for everybody.

Think about your field of work： while the mainstream view is probably that everybody’s competing with each other， is there a way to see it as just the opposite？ That we can all be successful， and that helping each other is actually a good thing？ I would bet that you can see it that way. Think of it in terms of personal success： do you really need to compete with your peers in order to be a success？ Can’t you all be successes， but in different ways？ Maybe one person makes a million dollars， another successfully starts a small business， another becomes famous for inventing something new， and another becomes one of the most solid and hardest working people in his field. Those are all successes in different ways， and there are many， many more ways to be successful.

There is a lot of use in this kind of view. Competition can be a motivator， and sometimes can be a lot of fun. But it can also be destructive， and become an obstacle to success. And if you see things as not a competition， that can lead to some really great things.2

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