There is nothing inherent in our existence that makes us need to do those things (tie your human worth to 'winning', 'getting ahead', or 'proving yourself', etc), and the best part is that whether you define yourself by those things or not is completely up to you. You don't need to change anyone else in order to not do those things yourself; when you say 'I wish we could just take this time for what it is, a gift of time,' you can totally do that! There is nothing stopping you - you don't need to convince anyone else of that in order to live it yourself.
You lament that you run into so many people who care about those things, and they are blind to the fragile and fleeting nature of it all, but I am unsure why that is such a horrible thing. Everyone is going to choose their own meaning for their lives, and sure, some will choose things that I don't understand and I don't think are important. But that is their life, and them choosing to care about those things doesn't change your life. You are not bound by their preferences.
In fact, I think it is great that all different people have such varied opinions on what is important. I get to observe them all, and see what life would be like under various scenarios. The human existence is so amazing because we all get to lead our own separate little 'experiments' in how we should live our lives (what we should do, what we should care about), and then we can share with each other what we have learned while trying these things. Some of the experiments will be utter failures, and some will be successes. We can learn from them all.