On Winning and Losing

On Winning and Losing (April 8, 2012)

Nobody wants to lose. People would go to great lengths just to win, they would cheat, they would lie and they would even steal just so to have an entry on the winning column.  But losing is part and parcel of life.  You cannot really win all the time.  Victory is sweeter when such is a product of a loss.

The trick here is to learn and extract much from losing.  What is the cause of defeat and what can we do avoid such from happening again.  Though victory gives a sweet feeling, such is only temporary and fleeting.  The lessons that losing/failure gives is far more valuable than an accidental success.

Of course, nobody loves a loser and everybody loves a winner.  But from a different perspective, a failure gives so many valuable lessons; I think that I’ve heard it from the character of Ethan Hunt of Mission Impossible that “failure is a rehearsal for success”.  Show me a winner and I will show you a hard working individual who never gave up until success crosses his path.

Sports will never cure cancer.  In the game of basketball, I see no sense in running back and forth, trying to outscore the opposing team.  The drama and inspiration derived from the effort is another story altogether that is made of stuff that produces legends.  Yes, it will never cure cancer, but it sure can provide inspiration that once properly harnessed could lead to a possible cure.  Because sports inspire greatness and in this era of manufactured and over hyped and over rated players, we still crave greatness in whatever form, shape and size.

That is why we will always celebrate the likes of Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods and Manny Pacquiao.  They are a success story waiting to be told and waiting to be copied and replicated.

Because whether we get it or not, losing is the flip side of winning and failure is the brother of success.  It is all a part of life.  You cannot win all the time and you cannot lose all the time.  The longer the losing streak, the sweeter the victory.  The key is to never give up.  The world is full of people who gave up and they are lamented.  The world is also full of people who never gave up and they are celebrated.

My son is entering the world of sports.  If there is one thing that he should pick up is the invaluable lesson of character, of never giving up and of resilience in the face of adversity.  I should know, though never a professional athlete, I have learned and valued these lessons which were a derivative from sports.

A month ago, I played basketball with my two sons, and let me tell you the sweetness of that feeling.  It was an experience beyond compare.  As if everything is right and though there will be some hardship, the compass or roadmap is already there.  I just need the common sense to follow it.

If we are to fail, let us fail forward (Maxwell, 2008).  Let us learn from our failures and pledge never to repeat the folly that brought us failure in the first place. Let us be calm with the thought that from losing we learn how to succeed later on in life.