I had to move the car at 7am today.

It’s not catastrophic.

First, I am blessed to have a car, and more blessed, since August, to have one that works. I’m also up every morning between 4 and 5. I prepare for the prayer call, and I write.

Still, the early car move is annoying. I have to structure my morning around it. It adds pressure to my day.

And it reminds me of one of the challenges I face with this city I love.

I love the diversity. I love the opportunity. I love the activity.

The city, however, breeds competition, and competition breeds hostility.

New York City is 8.256 million people in a land mass a little over 300 square miles. And most of that land is occupied.

That’s why we build offices in skyscrapers, and apartments in high rise buildings.

There are 249 apartments in my building. It’s over 500 people. I have no idea who most of them are. I just know that when ten of us have to get on an elevator together, I’m playing Twister at best, and starting to do weight calculations at worst.

Last week we got on an elevator with about 14 people that started falling. That will make you prayerful pretty quick.

In any case, I know that my days are going to be a fight for territory. I am competing for room on the subway, the sidewalk, and the street. And as much as I love people, it’s easy to start seeing them adversarially.

I don’t know these people. I don’t know their burdens, or fears. I just know they are cutting me off on the highway or pushing past me to get to the front of the grocery line. Sometimes we are in close enough space to communicate. Sometimes I don’t get to find out what they were thinking or give them any feedback that doesn’t involve sign language.

It doesn’t lend itself to peace.

Competition is the same thing that makes the appeal to xenophobia effective. If I’m struggling to pay my bills, and the news tells me that outsiders are sneaking in to take the little I have, I will focus on them, and not the guy who is hoarding billions, and profiting from my anger or fear.

If I’m barely getting by, I will resent the guy one step behind me, trying to leapfrog two steps ahead of me. And I ignore the guy who made a private road out of eight other lanes so that we are competing for this one.

We tend to do that. We are not mad at the person who makes a million times what we do. We admire him. We are mad at the one who makes double. We assume he thinks he’s better than us. We are mad at the one who makes half. We assume he’s not working hard enough.

It’s sibling rivalry: you’re mad because your sister got two cookies, and you only got one. You’re mad because your brother gets all the attention and gets to play by a different set of rules than you did at his age. You could probably care less about the rules that apply to kids you don’t know, unless social media is shoving the coolness of their lives in your face every day.

It’s sports: If I’m a talented high school basketball player, my rival is probably not Steph Curry. It’s the player I know I will face in the playoffs. It’s the team that beat me twice last year. I focus all my aggression on them. And if I put in the work, and they put in the work, it will probably make for a great game.

What if, though, we aren’t playing a game?

What if we are living lives stained by arbitrary, or even imaginary rat races that leave us striving to become the top rat?

What if our capacity for empathy has been compromised by a series of toxic contests we don’t have to enter?

A few years ago, I started hearing school kids say “sharing is caring.” It seemed like something your kindergarten teacher would tell you.

Then I started hearing it from adults, using when they were reaching for something I hadn’t offered.

My response to “sharing is caring” was then “taking is faking”?

Don’t run up on me, start washing my windshield, and ask for money.

Don’t hand me a (probably blank) CD you autographed and demand a donation.

Today I’m just praying to see clearly.

I want to see the humanity of the people around me, even though they may at times misuse shared space. After all, so do I.

I want to see the dishonesty of the people hustling me, even though they may have real needs. After all, so do I.

I want to see the reality of the people and forces manipulating me, even though they may also be doing society good. After all, so do I.

We may be forced to compete.

I’m just not sure I win when you lose.

We all have somewhere to go.

(Photo Credit: cottonbro studio)