People may play games and think they are in competition with you over something. Depending on who you are and what you value you may also believe you are in competition. You are in competition with nobody because nobody has what you have. I think that thinking you are in a competition will not lead to you doing well. I think if you just focus on doing better for yourself each day, you will notice the amount of progress over time. You can see that you are not the same person you were 5 years ago? Things about you changed over time. Your interests can change and the things that you desire can change. There is always an element of the old person inside of you. When you smile someone could see that it is still the same you, but your personality may come out a bit different. If you want to be in competition with everyone, then we can gear up and go to war on the world. Everyone is out for blood and only the top survives. Or we can choose to focus on ourselves, our situation, our problems and think about ways of getting out of them. Remember that if you spend too long of a period thinking of the same problem it is time to stop for the day. Call a timeout and do something else because you are not in the right state of mind to solve it at the time. If you do this, you can notice that when you follow back to the issue after not thinking about it, you can produce new and fresh perspectives that can solve the problem. I would suggest always trying to solve the biggest problem first or working at the one causing the most damage. You do damage control and start to protect yourself again. I like thinking about issues and my brain is addicted to finding ways to solve problems. They are not the regular way, but for me they seem to work. When you are on the right track you will start to notice the difference. You can never put a price tag on reducing your own stress. That to me has been one of the joys of being alive. Not enduring stress because that sucked but relieving stress is amazing. If you like chaos, I will never be able to help. I do not want chaos and do not get along well with chaos. Feeling rushed to make decisions with the adrenaline going is not the way I want to spend my Tuesday morning. Being able to enjoy a nice quiet walk without my brain starting with five hundred questions at a time? Have you ever played a game of rapid fire inside your own head? We want the head to be happy and when it is happy it does not talk and will just enjoy the fun. How do we get to have fun all the time and is it possible? Here is the controversial answer from me that yes, I do think it is possible.