Observing how others do, listening to how others think, and noticing how people feel about events most often lead to becoming aware of the difference between others and us.

In everyday conversations, we pick up some ideas here and there. There is a detail we haven’t been able to grasp, a reaction we’ve liked, or a new perspective that becomes accessible and needs to be explored.

There is potential for learning in all of them.

However, when it is the competition, things might change especially if they seem to be doing better than us. Then, studying how they do what they do can seem to be the way to learn to become better oneself, or to enhance our chances to win.

While there is such a possibility, there also is a risk.

The more one studies the way others approach something, the less space there is to consider how different they are from us and thus how their way of doing things might not be the right one for us. And the more one tries to copy someone else, the less time there is to remain aware of oneself and how things could work differently for us.