Rivalry is a part of life which everyone experiences at one point or the other. Rivalry has the potential to bring out the best and worst in people. Rivalry leads people to compete and encourages them to be better than their rivals. On the other hand, rivalry can lead to tunnel vision and can also lead to unethical behaviour. Therefore, rivalry brings out the best in people in terms of competition and development but it also has the potential to bring out the worst in them through traits like selfishness and violence.
Rivalry with peers leads to increased competition and the determination to improve. Rivalry brings out the best in people as they strive to improve. For example, the competitive structure of education keeps students motivated to indulge in healthy competition with peers to score better and strive for better grades. Similarly, rivalry can also lead people to be motivated and try to be better at school. Healthy rivalry keeps a sense of enthusiasm among people to prove their skills against the best talent. Therefore, the rivalry has the potential to bring out the best in people as it motivates them to improve.
However, rivalry also has a flip side. Rivalry pressures people to do best and can be a cause of stress. Rivalry, when taken too seriously, can take a toll on people’s health. For example, unhealthy competition creates stress and affects job performance and motivation of employees. Rivalry can also bring out negative emotions like jealousy that can lead people to take extreme steps. For example, in 2018, An Indian bank executive was killed by his colleague over professional rivalry because he received more promotions. It can be seen that in some cases rivalry makes life more difficult and lead to issues like anxiety, worry, and self-doubt. Therefore, rivalry brings out the worst in people by impacting them psychologically.
Rivalries can also bring out the worst in people as they develop a tunnel vision. When two individuals or groups are in constant rivalry with each other they might ignore other threats that can hinder their progress. For example, beverage giants Coke and Pepsi were so much in competition with each other that they missed the emergence of increasingly popular energy and health drink brands like Dr Pepper and Red Bull. Both these brands measured their success based on how they stacked up against each other. This also led to a preoccupation that they ignored other competitive threats. Therefore, rivalry can bring out the worst in people as it leads to unnecessary tussle and tunnel vision.
Rivalry brings out the worst in people because it can lead to unethical behaviour. Sometimes rivalry can blind a person completely. This may lead to people to go to the extent of using dirty tactics to reach our goal. For instance, Luis Suarez a footballer has been known to use dirty tactics like diving, biting, stamping to distract his opponents and win at any cost. Apart from that, there have been multiple incidents where athletes have chosen dirty tactics to win against opponents. For example, in boxing or even tennis, players are known to weaken the opponent’s concentration by insulting or verbally intimidating them This extreme rivalry can bring out the worst in people where they forget ethical behaviour because they want to win at any cost.
In conclusion, rivalry can bring out the best in people by being an effective motivator for achievement, effort and performance. However, extreme rivalries can only be detrimental to the well-being of an individual as it can lead to unethical behaviour. Therefore, rivalry should be encouraged only to a certain extent. Rivalry if unchecked can lead to negative behaviour which could lead to the destruction of the human race.