The world around us is a competitive place.

Imprinted within our intrinsic human nature, within our very DNA, is an unmistakable need to compete and emerge victorious over those around us. Survival of the fittest is the unavoidable law of the natural world around us, and the billions of species of plants and animals we see around us are dwarfed by the vast numbers of predecessors who entered that competition and failed to come out on top.

Our modern society as we know it is a complicated mural of these competitions occurring all around us – races for political office, races for power within corporate board rooms, and races to see who can amass the most money, personal possessions, and influence among their peers.

Thankfully, we have various outlets to channel this competitive nature so that things don’t devolve into Mad Max style dystopia all around us; whether it be through video games, talent shows, friendly wagers among coworkers, or the huge world of competitive sports.

The Olympics, which just concluded with a pulse-pounding closing ceremony this week, represent the absolute pinnacle of recreational competition for our species – pitting athletes against one another from countries that may never otherwise interact with one another, in sports that range from having international appeal to those that people might discover exist for the very first time while watching the games.

Make no mistake, every athlete who makes it to this apex level of competition wants to win and wants to be recognized as the best in their craft. But perhaps the most important lesson society should take from the Olympics comes not from the overall count of who wins the most medals, but instead from those who come in second, third, or don’t even wind up on the podium.

The Olympics bring together people from all over the world, promoting cultural exchange and understanding that might never occur otherwise, at least not on such a grand scale. They inspire countless millions to follow their own dreams of rising above their station in life and reaching for something higher. The mere presence of an athlete at the Olympics coming from someone’s native homeland can be enough to encourage many others to aspire to that level of greatness; win or lose.

The games were created to push the limits of human beings and their capabilities, not to see which collective groupings of people, based on often arbitrary, manmade, borders, can bring home the most trophies. It is a worthy pursuit that has continued to expand the limits on what we think is physically possible, indicated by world records that are smashed every four years.

In a world so dominated by the declaration of winners and losers, the haves and the have nots, it is somewhat refreshing that in the most prestigious of competitive affairs, we see such heartwarming displays of sportsmanship between people from wholly different cultures, each as competitive as the next, but who see the value in fostering an environment where the spirit of competition itself is more important than who ultimately receives the glory of victory.