I’ve been suspicious of competitiveness since I played childhood sports, when I found myself wanting more to connect with other kids than to vanquish them. As a resident of the hypercompetitive Washington, D.C., area, where the first thing people ask is, “What do you do?” and teenagers work themselves into states of panic about college acceptance, I’ve often thought about the legions of individuals who might never become number one in their field or get into their top school and would, by their own definition, be left wanting.