The Thrill Of The Fight

Back when I was a sales manager, there were many avenues to becoming the best in the district/region… exceeding sales budgets being one the key goals. So everyday, I was trying to prove I was the best. There was always some means of measuring success from one sales manager to another… and for the most part, I always was the best. I had to be the best… something inside of me that I can’t even control drives me to win (sometimes even at all costs)… I’ll get to that more in just a bit.

My current job has no means of competition. I mean, all I really do is oversee and protect the store’s total net operating profit, which includes payroll, inventory, store maintenance, etc… in addition to being second in command. So there really are no means of being the best in the management position I’m currently in.

So for the most part, my time in this position has been rather boring. If I’m not trying to be the best, I become completely apathetic. For the last couple months, I’ve felt pretty devoid of emotion anyway, so the growing apathy at work just makes things worse for me personally.

Anyway, another store in the district (my old store) and my staff are having a competition this month. It’s basically my operations staff performance on selling extended warranty versus theirs.

Most people who know me have really never seen a truly dark side of me… one of the darkest being my cut-throat, vicious, and absolutely cold-hearted competitive streak. Probably only my immediately family and maybe a few friends have ever seen my true untamed and savage nature while in competition.

First off, winning is never enough. I only accept total domination… complete victory. The goal is never simply to just beat the opponent(s)… it’s to completely obliterate them. Like I said, this isn’t really a side the most people have seen of me… people definitely get glimpses of it when they play even the smallest of games.

Take the game of RISK for example. It’s a simple board game of world domination. Each player starts off with the same number of armies and countries. The object is to invade other players’ countries and take them over. Whoever takes all the countries wins. Simple enough, right? Nope… not for me. I usually sit back and amass my armies to absolutely ridiculous sizes… sometimes overpowering all the other players 50 to 1. It’s not just a matter of taking their countries… it’s the psychological breakdown of their confidence. I want them to see that it’s not only improbable for them to beat me, but impossible. We never even finish the game because everyone quits when they feel there is no possible chance of beating me. I must attain complete dominance.

Hell, even when I taught fencing at the University of Texas… anytime we had a tournament, I was just plain vicious. The object is to achieve a touché (essentially a hit) on the opponent. Best two of three wins the match… since that ends pretty quickly, we usually played best three out of five. Easy enough… just get three touchés and you win the match. Not in my strategy. I would never allow an opponent one hit. I would just parry for about three minutes straight (an eternity in fencing). This not only defeats the opponent’s confidence, but it takes a toll on them physically… after doing 30+ lunge attacks in a single match, one’s legs begin to become very fatigued and sore. After I felt that I had them mentally and physically defeated, I would go ahead and attack… one after another until I had my three touchés, never evening allowing them to catch their breath or rest for a single second. Again… proving I’m the best and establishing complete dominance.

So I ask myself… does this brutal competitive streak really bring the best or the worst out in me? I obviously perform my best at these times, but am I a horrible person for my cut-throat manner of winning? Something in me just changes during times of competitions... the thrill of the fight... something unrestrained and primordial... is this just a part of me that I keep supressed... is this my true nature? I don't know. What I do know is that even being consciously aware that my competitive nature makes me down right malicious at times, I still know that I will win this competition… I also know that my margin of victory will be extremely enormous... leaving my opponents overwhelmingly obliterated.