Theodore Isaac Ruben, former president of the American Institute of Psychoanalysis, states in his 1980 essay “Competition and Happiness” from the book “Reconciliation: Inner Peace Age of Anxiety,” that competition poses an unnecessary barrier to people’s ability to live happy, meaningful lives and that it “brings out the worst” in people. For this reason, he claims, competition leads to problems with identity, stress, emotional stability, self-esteem and what he describes as a "cycle" of self-destructive mindset that compels people to compete. He gives an example by describing a previously uncompetitive Swiss university. Each student was graded individually without any quizzes or exams and only needed to learn and understand the material being taught. According to Ruben, the Americans were not very motivated by this situation and reacted by forming competitive groups. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay While Ruben demonstrates some excellent points, I personally disagree. Ruben tends to focus more on the negative aspects of competition and neglects to consider the more positive aspects. Although competition can potentially lead to an unbalanced life and physical or mental harm, it also has benefits such as perseverance, determination, the skills to deal with failure and the necessary mindset to success. For example, every sport involves competition in one way or another. In basketball, there is usually a team that you are a part of. You use your mental abilities to formulate a goal for the game and the opposing team, while incorporating your physical characteristics to achieve that goal. The experience alone is beneficial because you become physically strengthened, able to access more parts of the brain or access them more quickly. Other benefits that Ruben forgets to mention are the friendships you would make with some of your competitors' opponents. This fact contradicts the bleak picture of competition he describes. As everyone knows, friendships have a positive impact on a person's life. Since competitions can provide an opportunity to meet new people, competitions can therefore make a person's life easier. Creativity can also come from competition, as you would make the effort to develop new plans with a team or with yourself to overcome the obstacles presented or to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible. and as it stimulates the mind with new ideas, one can think or achieve that state of mind while working on a particular project and make more progress on it than if that person had not entered a competition at all . mind: This is just a sample. Get a personalized article from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay In short, I believe that competition is not a danger or total harm to a person's life as Ruben states. It would improve you mentally and physically, and while there is always the potential for negative effects such as those mentioned, I imagine the benefits would far outweigh the harms if someone were to compete. There is far more motivation to compete than for the incentives provided, and it serves as a platform on which a better life could be built because of the many valuable experiences that could emerge from it..