In The Elephant in the Brain, the authors present a unique perspective on competition, using redwoods as an analogy. These trees are described as reaching as high as humanly possible.
Not all trees are as high as those, and there is a reason for this.
Quote
Suppose we came upon a solitary redwood in an open meadow, towering far, far above the other plants and animals—a lanky giant standing all alone, reaching aggressively for the sky. This would look strange, even wrong, because it’s not how nature usually does things. Why would a tree waste its energy growing so high above an open field? […] Now consider the human being. Like the redwood, our species has a distinctive feature: a huge brain. But if we think of Homo sapiens like the lone redwood in the open meadow, towering in intelligence over an otherwise brain-dead field, then we’re liable to be puzzled.
This quote shouts to you why humans have evolved as we know it. But this also makes me think that somehow our behavior is similar even in our daily lives.
There are many things you wouldn’t do if you knew they are not strictly required. If you are applying for a job and you know that you are way ahead of your competition, it’s not likely that you’ll spend much time trying to improve the knowledge you already have.
In this context, this is very bad because if you don’t feel the pressure of someone who could be better than you, it’s pretty unlikely that you improve what you already are.
Every redwood lives in a very competitive environment, constantly competing with other redwoods for light. If a redwood were 5% higher than all other redwoods, there would be no need to rush to be better. Once you have a clear advantage over others, it’s challenging to find a reason to push even more.
This is true at every level of competence, you might guess.
When I was pondering on this topic, an example popped into my head. Imagine a mathematician attending a gathering of poets. The mathematician would be the best in math, that’s evident. But why wouldn’t he strive to be even better? Similarly, why would he want to improve his poetry skills when he already knows he is far behind the other people in that room? Even if he became ten times better in poetry, he would still be the last. This is without even taking into account that other poets may improve and surpass their current skill level.
In this gathering, you get the highest competition between poets.