Article February 9, 1957 Issue

BE COMPETENT, NOT COMPETITIVE

[Of Special Interest to Young People]

WILLIAM LITTLE

To be competent is to fulfill the purpose of God. The truth of this statement is readily apparent to the young man or the young woman who is a student of Christian Science. Why? Because the student of this Science knows that, as is indicated in the first chapter of Genesis, our true Parent, our Father-Mother God, created man in His own image and likeness. So it would be unthinkable for the image and likeness of the ever-present, all-acting, all-knowing God not to be competent.

A dictionary defines "competent" in part as "answering to all requirements; adequate; capable; fit." Now man, as the image of the perfect God, infinite Mind and Principle, knows only perfection and manifests all the requirements of perfection.

However, it is generally believed that it is not enough to be competent, that men and women must compete in the sense of striving with each other in order to get what they want. Since both "competent" and "compete" come from the same Latin root, competere, it is possible to view honest competition in the light of competency, or the friendly demonstration of perfection in one's daily activities. Such a view frees one from the sense of strife or from the fear of having someone else deprive him of joy and sets him to work to demonstrate the perfect man, or "the new man," as Paul expresses it in Ephesians (4:24).

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