“There is an American doctor who wrote about the results of competition on his life. He said he went to medical school in Switzerland, and he said there was a fairly large contingent of Americans at that school. He said some of us went into shock when we realized that there were no grades, and there were no awards, and there was no marks list. There was no first or second rank at medical school. You either passed or you did not. So he said, some of us simply couldn’t take it. We became kind of paranoid. we thought there must be some kind of trick here, and he said they couldn’t take it so they went to another university. He said those of us who survived that suddenly discovered a strange thing that we had never noticed at our American University. Students, brilliant ones, helping one another to pass; sharing notes…hey you might want to read this.
He said my son goes to medical school in the United States now, and he tells me that in the practicals people frequently screw up the microscope so that it will take the next guy three of four minutes to rearrange it. You’ve got to get ahead. Competition…you’ve got to succeed…you’ve got to be perfect.”
– Anthony De Mello