To make a game of a task is one of the easiest ways of accomplishing it. Parents, in particular, appreciate this, as is instanced by such familiar expedients in the lives of children as the race to get dressed in the morning, or the finishing of this or that before the mother or the father comes home. Competition against space, or time, or one's self, or somebody else, frequently, if not always, underlies the idea of the game. It is an exceedingly useful motive if not practiced to excess, and if the competition most often called into practice is competition against one's self.
With some people, the spirit of competition really becomes one of combativeness. The surest way to rouse their energies to is oppose them, and sometimes the best method of stimulating them to carry out what they have undertaken is to advocate an opposite course.
A delightful illustration of this is set forth by Boswell in his famous description of how he persuaded Dr. Johnson to dine with John Wilkes to whom the doctor was violently opposed, Wilkes being a strong Whig, while Johnson, of course, was a vehement Tory. "Two men more different could perhaps not be selected out of all mankind," says Boswell. "They had even attacked one
