I’m almost afraid to mention them because the competitions seem so good-natured. I’d hate to see someone make a movie about them and spoil the bon homie.

“Maybe you should enter one of these,” my husband suggested, after watching his 11th video.

Meh.

I adopted the habit of jigsaw puzzling during Covid. I like it because it’s relaxing and uses parts of my brain that I enjoy using (spatial aptitude, pattern recognition). Listening to podcasts while puzzling ties up my pre-frontal cortex and the intuitive parts of my brain get activated. Or I’ll get my sister on the left coast on a zoom call and we puzzle separately but together, catching up and sometimes cracking ourselves up to the point where we can’t puzzle any more.

Yes, sometimes I pick up speed and move pretty quickly.

But I wouldn’t enjoy a competition because, there, the purpose would be speed. To go faster than the person next to me. To beat them all. Or beat my previous time.

And I’m really not competitive.

I know that sounds odd, considering that I grew up in retail. Man, I have to tell you, retail sales managers are competitive. They always wanted to add gambling or sports or some other competition to conferences. They were always comparing numbers – my sales are higher than yours or I have more memberships or I filled open positions faster than you did. Trash-talking.

But I never got into that.

My husband doesn’t believe that I’m not competitive. When I start to build up speed while jigsawing, he thinks I’m trying to prove I can do it faster than him. But I’m just in a groove. Vibe puzzling. I’m not competitive; I’m just faster.

One night, at dinner with a friend, my husband was commenting on how competitive I am. He and the friend both claimed not to be competitive. Then an appetizer arrived that was ridiculously spicy. Now I like spicy food but one bite was enough for me.

The two guys each took a bite and tried to persuade each other that the dish wasn’t too spicy. They kept bragging about the spice and taking additional bites, their lips turning blue.

Sure, I’m the competitive one, not you.

Anyway, the idea of a jigsaw puzzle competition doesn’t appeal to me. Hobbies, for me, are about process not results.

Arthur Brooks’ The Meaning of Your Life, recommends that you work towards increasing goals with your hobbies. He makes them about results. That will give them meaning, he says, give your life purpose.

I like some of what Brooks writes in his books. But there are always two or three things I disagree with. And this is one of them. I see no reason to force a goal-oriented, competitive spirit on things I do because I enjoy doing them, because they are relaxing, because they reduce burnout and help me forget my stressors and sleep at night.

Competitive jigsaw puzzling would be like baking chocolate chip cookies competitively. Or walking competitively (which I did once and hated). Or writing competitively.

Why does it have to be a competition? Why can’t it be cooperation? Or just something you do because you enjoy it?

What do you think?