Competition has taken the place of cooperation, especially in today’s youngsters. This has affected a lot of relationships and breeded hatred, envy, slander, bitterness, abuse, gossip, back bitting, and many other social ills that are prevalent today. Help, comfort, empathy, and support have taken the back seat, creating an atmosphere of unhealthy competition and cold war.
Cooperation means working together for mutual benefit. It requires two or more people working together for their common good or for the benefit of others. It is all about having the interest of others at heart with a selfless purpose. In the olden days, cooperation was practised more due to the family and village communal setting. There was strong social relationships where families and villages were allies in wartime, helped each other when sick or injured, gathered communal food, had common play grounds, gave a signal when there’s danger and protected eachother from harm and danger. Cooperation was rewarding, and relationships thrived more than what is obtainable in the contemporary time.
Competition is healthy for organisations who compete in the market, government departments who compete for resources, or anywhere demonstration of value is required. Competition creates innovation and creativity for a person who already understands cooperation and how to utilize it. Thus, the spirit of cooperation and competition are both required for success, but cooperation comes first.
In character formation and moral coaching, cooperation is an indispensable tool. The cooperative approach of ‘two good heads are better than one’ has proven to be useful in family and professional lives. When businesses or team members work collaboratively, the shared ideas and shared resources make innovation more flourishing. Social interactions can hardly wilt where there is cooperation. Thus, the benefits of cooperation abounds.
Children and youths need to have the values and sense of cooperation instilled in them, to prepare them for a healthy family, a hale relationship, profitable business venture and for leadership position in the future.
Learning coperation shoupd start from home, in school, at work place and in any gathering of two or three. At the family level, a child who has chores assigned to her must know how to work with other family members to achieve that. They must cooperate while studying, playing, and praying. Isolation and segregation must be barred while mutual interest and mutual benefit should be promoted.
Parents need to ensure that their children eat together, pray together, go to church and attend functions together, stay together while they read, cook, play, and do other activities. Teamwork starts from home, where collaboration and friendliness are built.This collaborative spirit helps to establish and sustain cooperation. When cooperation is mastered, healthy competition strikes the balance needed for innovation and creativity to take place.
Cooperation amongst parents, siblings, colleagues, friends, neighbours, church members, peer groups, society, and community members must be encouraged. Isolation is damaging and not good for health and relationships. No man is an island. We all need each other through cooperation. The world is such a lonely place because cooperation is drifting at different levels, and that breeds suspicion, hatred, and war. Without cooperation and collaboration, nations wouldn’t be able to liaise, negotiate, communicate, and prepare competitions like World Cup and Olympics. Through cooperation, they relate at different international levels and have different national, regional, and world organisations.
However, a sense of cooperation should not replace completely the desire to compete. Knowing the difference between the two, when and how to use them for a desirable result is the ultimate. It is pertinent to note that without competition, there won’t be the drive to create, to improve, and to innovate. While cooperation is the means to these, competition is the drive, and both are needed. Even at family level, competition is needed to keep up and be challenged to be the best and make our parents proud.
The young must learn cooperation as part of the ethical principals needed to steer their vision and prepare them for the future. Natural, civilized, and healthy competition should not be encouraged because it is fundamental to the success of all modern development.
BIBLE VERSE
Philippians 2:2
Make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose
PROVERB
If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.
African Proverb
RIDDLE
My name may suggest that we separate, but we are designed to cooperate If not given a secure place to stay, one of us may suddenly roll away. What are we?
Amara Ann Unachukwu
