The sun rises and sets on all of us. I am no better than the next person. But I will be the best me that I can be!

Let's face it, competition can be a lot of fun and it can be anywhere. Everything from sports to the fine arts, there are more than enough ways to compete with other people who share similar interests. Although I have been involved with competitions most of my life, I'm not actually much of a competitive person in the typical sense. The type of competition I have mostly engaged in has been comparing myself to other people.

It seems to be human nature to compare ourselves to others. It may start with thoughts about how we want to be that other person or want what they have. And it may end with us trying to be better than them in someway or even causing them some sort of harm. This is definitely not restricted to competitive sports or the arts. Envy and jealousy can creep into any situation.

To be absolutely honest, I use to resent other's success. There was a time in my life when I wanted to be more successful than someone else in those things I was most interested in. I would even go so far as to sabotage their efforts. I recall one instance where a good friend of mine was interested in being a part of an album project I was working on for a Christian band. When this friend reached out to me, my response was, "You aren't Christian enough."

Yes, I really did utter those exact words.

At the time, my pride was really getting in the way. Not only in the way of the project, but more importantly, in the way of a friendship where I was building a wall between myself and this friend. What my selfishness was hiding from me was that I was the one who wasn't "Christian enough" to be working on the project. Sure, I was pretty good at what I did. I recorded, edited, and produced 9 Christian albums in total back in those days. But this friend, whom I had crushed, was probably better than I was in what needed to be accomplished on that project. He certainly was a better friend than I was being at the time. And I knew his potential. After all, we had worked on several other production projects over the course of a few years.

We have since reconciled what had happened and I came clean when he first brought it up to me years later. It was a phase of my life where I can honestly say I was not a very good person. And I was definitely not being the best I could be. The lessons my friend taught me after this were such things as grace, mercy, and humility. I really am no better than anyone else, especially him. And the fact of the matter is, the sun rises and sets on all of us. Even the rain falls on us all no matter who we are or how important we may feel.

Today, I celebrate other's success. The only person I am competing with now is who I was yesterday. Each day, I try to be a little bit better than I was the day before. I have come quite a long way from that seemingly horrible person I was decades ago. I left my pride back in the past and I'm moving forward. Healthy competition in a controlled environment, such as a sporting event, is perfectly fine. But be sure to leave your competitive self and your pride out on the field. Outside of "the game," you shouldn't ever try to be better than anyone else. But you can definitely be the best you that you can be.