We all need a certain measure of it . . . certainly I would not bother washing myself at all some days if I didn't have to face the stunning doctor's wife at the school gates . . . but too much is surely exhausting.

In the work arena I cannot imagine anything more debilitating or destructive than feeling that one is in competition with one's peers. For that reason, the only person I have ever competed against in my work is myself. I reserve my work dysfunction for co-dependent people-pleasing sucking up to agents and editors . . . much more useful.

I long since realised that it doesn't take nearly long enough for me to find somebody richer, prettier, more applauded and more talented than me and setting oneself up against the competition is not only foolish, but egotistical and self-destructive.

And yet competition as a mindset seems to be at the cornerstone of our lives.

Commerce needs competition to help it thrive, otherwise state-run telephone and energy companies would ride us sideways. But then when the earth freezes over, will we still be applauding ourselves for all those 99 cent Ryanair weekend breaks?

Competitive high-street prices are fuelled by sweatshop commerce. Third-world countries are being stripped of their culture; subsistence farming is being swallowed up overnight by huge multinationals so that they can provide us with bananas and coffee and five-packs of cotton knickers five cent cheaper than the next guy.

And then there is sport. I am a Mayo supporter, a sobering and by times character-building position to be in. I am still sore about losing to Meath in 1996.

I can still feel my blood boil when I think of Liam McHale being sent off and how we should have won that day and not had a replay and the injustice of it all. I can't watch Mayo play in front of other people. Everyone else goes to the pub but I have to stay at home in a darkened room, on my own, because the language out of me frightens children. When I meet people . . . nice, friendly people from Meath . . . I can feel myself not liking them because Meath (unfairly! unfairly! ) beat my team at a football match over 10 years ago. That's competitiveness.

It seems peculiar, then, that democracy is built on something so unattractive and potentially poisonous. Politicians campaign for our support by continously undermining each other and tripping each other up. Vote for me because the other fella made a balls of it. Is it me or did make-up and styling feature larger than ever on the election posters this year. No wonder Beverly Flynn took Mayo. One only hopes her principles aren't as slick and airbrushed as her election poster.

Political leaders need dignity to enlist the respect of the people they serve, yet the business of getting elected, all that squabbling and slagging each other off, exposes the worst of competitive behaviour. It may only be a game but it's hardly one that inspires nobility and respect.