You know the word competitive is interesting. Singaporean people are very competitive, as much as any Western person I believe. Did you actually understand that the Buddha taught us to be competitive? He really did, he taught us to compete. Think about different sports. In some sports like soccer, you try to win or else you lose, it's a team event. Some sports like swimming are different, although many people still tend to think, "I win otherwise I lose". Wrong! In a sport like swimming, or running, when you are an individual person against a clock, it often doesn't matter if you win or lose the race.
I used to be a competitive swimmer when I was young. If I won the race but my time was not my fastest time, I wasn't so happy. If I lost the race but I had my very best time, I was always happy. Who was I competing against? Was I competing only to win the race? No. I was competing against myself.
Now the Buddha teaches us to compete against ourselves. How many times during one day do you get upset, angry, sad or mad? If it is 40 times today, can you do better tomorrow? Can you compete against yourself on how much you can lessen the times in a day you get angry? Can you compete against yourself by trying to increase the times in a day you are loving and patient and peaceful? That is where competition is very useful in this practice to improve ourselves.
Now I will add that sometimes you may compare yourself to others. To a certain extent that's competition and if it's used properly it can be ok. If you see somebody who's getting angry, ask yourself - do I do that? When you see somebody who is loving and peaceful, ask yourself - do I do that? In that way when we see somebody whose qualities are better than ours, we can feel inspired and try to copy them. When we see somebody whose qualities are not that good, such as anger and fear, etc., we see the Dukkha it creates and through compassion to ourselves and others we attempt to not do that. So competition in this practice, it is always coming back to ourselves, competing against ourselves. In that way, as far as being unwilling to take on a challenge in life, forget it. To uncover our greatest human potential is the biggest challenge in the world. Can you purify your mind and your heart?