Protagonist rule #3: Compete intentionally

For almost all of human history, we lived in scarcity. We lacked food, housing and safety and lived in small communities that could easily be wiped out by competing tribes. It’s hard to imagine for most of us, but famines occurred regularly. Warfare between tribes was the norm in many regions of the world. And being ostracized and expelled from the community you were born into was a death sentence.

The notion of scarcity introduces the need for competition. If there’s only enough food for one of us, I’d rather be the one that gets to consume it as my innate desire to live will cause me to choose myself over the other person. Or, by extension, I prefer for my children to live even if that means that those of someone else might not.