Problem Competition

The "little I'' seeks to enhance itself by external approval, external possessions and external "love".
ACIM-T-preface

The little I, this entity ego creates and tells us we are, is always trying to enhance itself  through getting and gaining something "out there".  It seeks to gain approval, possessions and "love".  This, it believes  will make it "special".  Ego likes to be special.  Actually, because it is so competitive, it  likes to be more special than someone else.   

What happens when life doesn't seem to be allowing us to get these things to enhance self with?  What happens when our lives seem to be riddled with problems? It  may resort to using these so called problems to enhance itself.


Problems?

"You think you got problems, let me tell ya what I got going on?"  or  "Everyone has problems.  I don't know why you think you are so special because of yours!" 

These are  common responses to hearing someone's expression of their so called problems, even if it is not spoken out loud, aren't they?  We seek to build and/or maintain  this identity of "special" in one way or another.

Problem specialness may give us an outlet by which we are seen, heard, and ego fed. For that reason problems  may  become a category in one of egos many competitions. 

The Problem Competition

If we are still dominated by ego's urges but unable to enhance this idea we have of self through external reward,  we may be unknowingly participating in a "problem competition" with one another.  It is a game we want to win by coming out at the finish line "more special" in our eyes or the eyes of others. We win by either having the most challenging  problems or the least challenging amount  of problems. Either way we can tell ourselves we are more special than the losers.

Assessing the Competition

We are often selective with whom we compete with in this game. We tend to enter this competition with people who have a whole lot less problems or at least smaller problems  than us so we can feel superior in our victim status.  Or we may choose people who seemingly have a lot more  problems so we can feel more special in terms of being more fortunate and blessed.  Our goal is to win regardless of what our idea of winning entails!

We are also careful about who our competition is. We like to compete against those who we compete against anyway, people our sense of self is somewhat threatened by in one way or another in other avenues of our lives.  If we can't beat them by being better at something else out there than we will sign the  competitor and ourselves up for a problem competition, hoping that maybe  we can beat them in the problem game.

Making Guilty: An added perk for competition
 
If our competitor is someone we are in conflict with and holding grievances against  for whatever reason, and  someone whom we want to see feeling guilty, even better!  Beating them in a problem competition seems like a way to make them suffer , doesn't it?  "Won't they feel bad about what they said, did, or thought in regards to me when they see how "problem special" I am."  For the ego really believes it can get and keep[win] by making guilty. ACIM-T-15:VII:2:5

Avoiding Contenders

Ego likes to win at all costs. We therefore do not want to compete with others who are sure to win the game.  We want to come out "special". If our idea of winning is all about having the most problems or the most life altering situations to deal with we do not want to pick a battle with someone who is grieving the loss of a loved one, who was just diagnosed with a life threatening disease or who just lost everything they owned.  Do we?  We are not going to win that one

What if these "Big and Real"  problems were added to a competition that already began?  Wow! That puts us in an awkward situation doesn't it?  Or what if we suddenly realize that the person we are running against is actually someone who we assume should   be there to listen to our problems?  How are they going to be there for us if their problems are bigger than ours?  "Bigger problems for them  makes them more worthy of being seen and heard therefore my "specialness" and right to be seen and heard will be diminished." What do we do in these situations?

Cheating In Order To Win

Well ego wants to win, ego wants to be "special". It  is also pretty tricky and will sometimes do what it can to slyly take the competition out on the inside lane when the judges aren't looking.  We may diminish, belittle,  down play, deny, turn out backs to, pretend we don't know what is going on with the other person, fail to listen, avoid, or generalize their problem or experience so it does not get in the way of our getting the garland of specialness draped around our necks. Something as seemingly innocent as '' Everyone has problems" or "Who doesn't go through that" can be like a sucker punch or a shove down to the ego with a so called problem.

Cheating, winning and losing

I have been at both ends of this ego competition...both determined to win at all costs by showing off what I thought was the biggest, baddest problem list and at the same time finding myself  knocked down by  diminishing statements or actions from competitors  when I attempted to express a problem. I have had people I thought were my friends walk away and close their eyes to me in my grief yet still expected me there to listen to their problems while I was in the height of this grief. I have had others crack very inappropriate jokes during my sharing of life altering circumstances. And many, many times I have heard insinuated that my problems were not greater in number or degree of intensity when I felt my problems were quite extraordinary.  I have also been the offender, as well, on many occasions.

Foolish Not Terrible

Are we terrible people for being caught up in these ego games?  No...we are not terrible.  We are simply foolish. Foolish for following ego's lead and believing what it has to say.  Problem competition  is not only a game we cannot win but a game we do not want to win!!! And we are too blinded by egos need to create "special little I-ness"  to realize that.

Once we become aware that we are participating in problem competitions with others, we can step away from ego long enough  to see what we are doing and how it is effecting us and the people we are in competition with.  Until we do that we will be duking out until someone gets knocked out.

Failing To Empathize

So what is happening during this competition: We are simply doing what ego does.  We are becoming overly attached to the life events we are encountering, feeling seperate and lonely, being self-centered, fearing that if we lose this silly game we will lose our sense of "me-ness" and  possibly failing to empathize with the  suffering experience of another. 

We are failing to empathise. Bad thing, right? Empathy , we are culturally taught, not only involves admitting to and validating that our competitor  definitely has a problem, possibly more important than ours, but it also means joining them in that suffering. When we don't join them in that suffering ego shames  us further. 

The only way to get out of this conundrum is to appear to have more problems than them.  That means doing the opposite of empathising.

What we have to realize, however, is that Ego's idea of empathy is actually just a counter attack.

To empathize does not mean to join in suffering, for that is what you must refuse to understand...the ego always empathizes to weaken and to weaken is always to attack. ACIM-T-16:1-2

Say what crazy lady?

Beyond the Competition

There is a way to endure our problems without making them a competition and a way to support others without getting lost in their suffering.

First of all we do not need to go into competition with anyone.  That does not get us anywhere. 

Next, we need to realize that what we call problems are not problems!  What we are collecting on our problem list are just random life events .  What makes them into a "suffering" experience is our desire to react to them by labelling them as problematic and resisting and struggling against them.

Thirdly,  we need to recognize that though there seems to be so many different types of problems out there that we tend to measure in varying  degrees of intensity there really isn't.  For example, we may that a person who was just diagnosed with terminal cancer, just lost their house in a fire  and their husband just  ran off with the babysitter has more problems than an individual who is having chronic  stress at work and is suffering from the discomfort of a heel spur. Right? 

ACIM tells us that is really not the case.  There is only one problem and therefore one solution ( which I will write more about in the next entry)

A problem that has been resolved cannot trouble you. Only be certain you do not forget that all problems are the same.  Their many forms will not deceive you while you remember this. One problem, one solution. Accept the peace this simple statement brings.
ACIM-W-80:3

Then we need to see what empathy really is.  True empathy has nothing to do with the ego. True empathy recognizes there is no problem anywhere but in the mind. It is a healing ...a putting away this notion of "suffering" and "problem" for what is real. It is  recognizing that reality in ourselves and in the person who states they have a so called problem.

Well that is the way I see it but what do I know?

All is well.

ACIM (2007) A Course in Miracles : Combine Volume. Foundations for Inner Peace