Collaboration is better than competition

Definitions (Wikipedia)Collaboration - working with others to do a task and to achieve shared goalsCompetition - the rivalry among sellers trying to achieve such goals as increasing profits, market share, and sales volume by varying the elements of the marketing mix: price, product, distribution, and promotion. When I say collaboration and competition, I am talking mainly from an economic perspective. No man is an islandImagine that you are stranded on island with your friends. If survival is your main goal, would you guys compete or would you collaborate? Collaborating will probably ensure your survival much better because the whole group can leverage each others individual skills and contribution. Today the world would much be better off if humanity fully collaborates instead of competing against each other. Collaboration, not competition, is what allows humans to accomplish large goals and tasks such as building bridges or sending a man on the moon. At Apple, engineers collaborate in order to design the iPhone and iPads. Companies cannot be successful if the people within that company don't collaborate. Imagine if employees within a company all compete against each other. That company wouldn't survive very long. When people collaborate, obviously more work gets done than one person working by himself. The bigger question is why is the principle of collaboration only applied within a company, and not to all of humanity and the world? Just like the success of a company depends on its employees working together, the success of the human race depends on humans working together and solving our problems.We don't solve our problems by competing against each other; problems are ultimately solved when we collaborate.Competition divides humanityThe problem with competition is that it's too individualistic and self-centered. Don't get me wrong; I am not against having personal freedom and expressing our unique selves. The problem is that in a competitive environment, the main objective becomes beating the other person, and not about improving oneself. An example is in our school systems where most students focus on getting high letter grades on the exams and beating their classmates, instead of really understanding and learning the subjects that are being taught. Many students forget what they memorized after they pass the class and didn't really learn as much they should have. Competition divides and seperates us, because it makes us think that we are all different from each other and that we have little or no common interest. Racism and nationalism is all a root of competition: whites vs. black, Spanish vs. Asians, U.S. vs China. The fact is that we are all humans, no matter what race or country we come from. We all have the same needs and problems: food, water, shelter, companionship, and love. Yes each of us are unique and have our own individual skills and personalities, and likes, but that doesn't take away our common values."Competition movitates people"Sadly, this is true for many people because this is what our culture and our education systems have taught us. Our society teaches us to be better than other people always comparing ourselves with everybody. Who has the better car, better house, etc? If you're a artist, your motivation to paint should be to create the most beautiful painting that you can create, not because you want to have a better painting than your next door neighboor. Our society teaches to compete against others, when the true competition is ourselves. We can always only improve ourselves to the best we can. Our motivation is to improve and become better at what it is we love to do, and solving problems.