We all know the feeling we get when we are so close to winning that sport, completely acing a test, when we have been grinding away for hours on some craft only to in the end mess up or fall just too short of the goal. It makes us feel angry, stupid, maybe even like a worthless pile of trash. You start thinking to yourself maybe I am dumb, maybe I am weak and lazy. Maybe I am inferior.
Perhaps these things are true, but the problem is our attitude towards mistakes and failures. Some readers will start immediately thinking I am just going to say we need to learn from our mistakes and see them as learning opportunities, or some cheap cliché like that. Actually, I think that is also not a good attitude either. These moments should be seen just as you see something as a success. Some winners are the greatest losers of all time, and some losers are the greatest winners of all time.
What do I mean by this? I am not saying exactly that you have to lose many times to become a winner, although I will return to this later. I am saying winning is easier than losing. To win everything with no mistakes or inaccuracies is much easier than doing everything incorrectly and failing every time. Think about it this way. Let’s say you were playing a sport like basketball, and you won made every shot you took. How hard would that be? Seems impossible right? Well compare making every shot to missing every shot even though you have been practicing everyday for ten hours. How hard would it be to keep playing basketball after that? How hard would it be to keep playing if you just won 1st? Making every shot doesn’t look so hard now does it?
Winning is easier because it reinforces the behaviour to keep playing. Losing reinforces the behaviour to stop playing. It’s harder to keep playing the game when you are losing. There is a metaphor in there. The real winners are those who keep playing the game when their minds and other people are telling them to stop playing. I quite would like to see an incredibly successful person mess up so badly that they what to quit, and I want to see them dance out of that rabbit hole.
This is why some of the greatest champions are losers. They are champions because they lost so many times and kept on going, they kept on playing the game. And the greatest losers are those who stopped playing on. The hero is always born in the darkest part of the journey never the brightest part.
If you are thinking, “well what if person A is better than person B in everyway, then what is the point of person B?” Asking this question will forever make you feel trapped. The burden of proof is on the wrong side. A better question is: if person A is better than person B in everyway, then what is the point of person A? Answer, the purpose of winners is to get losers to keep playing on. To inspire people to keep on moving forward. If everyone wins then nobody plays. Why do you think nobody plays tick tack-toe-anymore? Conclusively, don’t look at champions as those who were successful, look at champions as those who didn’t quit.
N. Monk the Unofficial Philosopher