I'm Going to Beat You

In my Organizational Behavior class in college, Prof. White taught us the difference between Type A and Type B personalities. As most of you know, Type A's are the real go-getters. They're the ones who never know how to relax and are never quite satisfied with what they have. In addition, they have an internal competitive drive that keeps them going. Type B personalities, on the other hand, are very laid back and much less competitive.

I'm somewhere in the middle of Type A and Type B, with more of me leaning towards the A side. I guess that's the part of me that finds the idea of business school thrilling. It's that part of me that wants to take a simple idea and create an entire empire out of it.

But for those of you who know me best, you'll know that I'm not really that competitive of a person. In fact, I bet that most of you think that I'll be eaten alive in business school. Well, it's true. I'm not very competitive. In the important things, that is.

I find that I'm highly competitive when it comes to things that are irrelevant. Whenever I go to the gym to run on the treadmill, I will not get off until the person next to me gets off. It doesn't matter if I've run 1 mile or 10 miles. There's no need for me to be competing against the person next to me, but it always works. I always run better if there is someone on the treadmill next to me. Similarly, if I'm at the self-checkout at the grocery store, I will race the person at the station next to me. I will internally race them to make sure that I finish checking out my groceries before them. And when I do beat them, I do a silent victory dance.

But for the things that actually matter, I don't have a competitive bone inside of me. In college, I was consistently failing orgo tests, despite the fact that all my friends aced them with flying colors. This never seemed to motivate me to study any harder.

What's wrong with me? I recently brought this point up to one of my really good friends, and his only statement was, "You're such a guy." Is that true? Is this what guys are like? As far as I know, I don't actually know anyone else out there who acts like this.