Are Winners Grinners

Wins no matter how big or small need to be celebrated when they happen. And to be found trying plays a real role in keeping our ambitions or dreams running toward our preferred goal of a win. As they say in the ad, ‘it might not happen overnight but it will happen.” Is winning everything?

Sometimes, ask Erin Brockervich. Winning meant everything to her tort case but more particularly to the people that she went to bat for. What drove her was her belief she had uncovered an injustice. She had, and it was unjust what had happened to her clients.

Winning (in my opinion) in that instance was not only just but right. The company in question was shirking its corporate responsibility which was a culpable offence. It [the company] deserved to suffer the full consequences of its actions.

There’s was a move here in Australia to teach children how to lose. Interesting spin and necessary too. Necessary? Have I lost my marbles? Perhaps! Am I being realistic? Who knows, perhaps only time will tell. Balance is an oftentimes used word to describe what I think is an ideal. A nice one I agree.

Personally, I believe balance is acquired through choice (internal decision) rather than external forces being brought into line with an acquired external (which is later internalised) philosophy. So for me, I prefer a more ‘feet in the mud’ approach that I refer to as a ‘necessary tension’.

A necessary tension describes (to my way of thinking) the persistent state of flux we find ourselves in as human beings. Things happen to us, about us, and even when we’re not looking. Suffice it to say, it’s not always easy to plan to win in every aspect of our lives because those unexpected events happen to even the best and kindest of us or scenarios present themselves without warning and can be or are simply beyond our control.

So do we simply shrug our shoulders and give up? Depends. Sometimes struggling against the tide can harm us more, so we need to ask for wisdom as to whether we’ll step up to the plate or simply sit and rest awhile in the eye of the storm. There are worse places we could be! It will also depends on the skills we’ve been taught to survive.

Unfortunately losing is always premised in the context of one having been beaten (by bigger, more skilled competitors or rivals – so how is that a loss? Raises the bar for us for sure, but to call it a loss, I don’t agree) By cheats? Beyond our control. We can only do what we can do. We always hope it will be an even playing field but we can never be sure, not these days.

To me, losing is one of those natural ebb and flow motions, we win some, we lose some. It’s all about the getting up afterwards that matters or what we determine to do with the experience we’ve had and how we use it to propel us forward into our future (be that wisely, steady as she goes, with added grit and determination or simple gungho). It’s about getting in there and getting our hands dirty. I’d rather die trying than not at all.

We can learn from losing small battles along the way. We can learn stamina, we’ll need it. Losing, it’s not all bad, it’s just the way it looks. How you look, well that’s another story isn’t it! Go on, have a go!