Chemist Competitiveness

I really think chemists are naturally competitive with each other. If someone had to stay up all night in the lab running a reaction, you know that person will tell you about it the next day. Then your reply will one-up that chemist by saying, "Yeah, well I was up all night writing a proposal." It's not totally uncommon for a chemist to take a stab at some other chemist's research and point out the defects (in a jokingly way). This competitiveness flows into other aspects of life of a chemist. Case in point, I was playing dots with a collegue of mine during a boring meeting. I was constantly scanning the dots looking for an edge and cringed when I would make a bad move. After I lost the game, I realized how competitive I became at a simple game of dots. I don't think I would have been as competitive if my opponent was a non-chemist. Later this month, our chemistry department will play our rival school's chemistry department at an annual softball game. Are chemists athletes? Uh, usually not. But that doesn't mean we won't get out there on the field and become competitive wannbe jocks. So do chemists become competitive from the program or are chemists naturally competitive and attracted to this field? I think it's probably a combination. We chemists are probably a bit gun-ho anyway, but the department just brings it out more. So for all you chemists (and other people that are in similar fields)...we've got to slow down and relax. It's okay if we're not the best. I say we need to chill on our competitiveness.