competing versus taking up the challenge

I am inclined to think that even the most successful capitalists only manage to succeed because they operate on the basis of taking up challenges, rather than on the basis of competing per se. Competing, it seems to me, is a poor man's game. From observation, the most successful martial artists tend to compete against no-one but themselves. To focus on competing is to lower the tenor of your game by keeping too much of an eye upon the competition -- an exhausting procedure in itself. One always has to take micro-measurements on the basis of a presumed similarity, if one is to focus primarily on the task at hand as a competitor. On the basis of these complex micro-measurements, one angles subtly to outdo one's opponent. Yet you and I are not the same, and will never be even particularly similar. We haven't started from the same points, and it is unlikely that we are going in the same direction, either. What makes you so interesting to me -- or me so interesting to you -- that I would deign to spend three-quarters of your life and mine competing against you? Surely there are more interesting things to do in a large world such as ours? The fear that some moralists nurture, in particular some proletarian moralists, that those who have decided not to compete will not take up the challenges of life is unfounded. Rather, the one who has taken a different perspective on competition has positioned herself to have the greatest abundance of energy and openness to experience to take up all sorts of challenges, as she sees fit.