Do you like
winning? Well we all know what the answer to the question will be, and it’s not
going to change no matter whom you ask this question. Despite their race, sex,
age, caste and creed the answer will unequivocally be yes. And if animal could
talk it would not be an unrealistic assumption that their answer would be the same.
So what makes winning so important? I tried to think about it and came up with gazillion
of answers, all of which made sense but felt incomplete. So I generalized them and
came up with a very simple reason, which to me was a satisfying answer. That he
who wins dictates the course of future; here the term future encapsulates a
very wide range of terms. It can be as simple as a toss winner choosing to start
a game or as complex as a president winning an election and decide the future
of a Nation.
The question
which intrigued me most was, despite this huge incentive, what make majority of
the human population to settle down in their life with a loss. I might seem
cynical here, but if we think, the feeling of losing is so sulky, how come we
settle with it? So I sat for introspection because many a time in my life, I did
settle for a loss. Having more than 20 years of data I had enough data for my
analysis. Just to let you know, I am a student of statistics and always hungry
for data. Before I put my hypothesis in front of you, let me make the term
loosing clear here. When I say losing it doesn't mean just failing to achieve
something, it means settling down for something less than what you deserve.
While going
through my past records of failures, I asked what gave me relief when I lost.
Because as all human being I never liked loosing and the feeling of losing left
me in shambles. So I thought of the things which gave me relief from the void
that, lose had created. The very first thing that popped up was the game of
blame. We feel a great sense of relief, when our baggage of lose is placed on
others, it can be any other person, existing things or even non-existing things
like chance or luck. When we ever we lose we have someone or something to
blame. Isn’t it so easy and nice to dust of our responsibilities?
The second
factor which I believe hinder our path towards winning, are the people who care
for us. I might seem to be a bad person when I say; people who try to be good
to us are actually bad for us. But before judging let me make my point clear.
These people give us a shell or a comfort zone which we find really difficult
to get out of. They pick us even before we fall, and we never get a chance to
pick ourselves up. I don’t blame them for this; they will be that way, because
they care for us and can’t see us in pain. So who is the culprit here, it is we
who can’t bear a little pain and rush towards them to listen to their soothing
words which acts as panacea for our pain, that it was never our fault.
Coming to
the next one and I believe it is really important, that to think of your
opponent as stronger than you are. In my life most of the time I lost I felt my
opponent was stronger than me so it was ok to lose. No it’s not ok to lose;
it’s never ok to lose. Simple math will tell you that, if you don’t run a race
your probability of winning is zero, but if you try then however small it may
be you have a probability to win. So thinking of your opponent stronger than
you are is like forfeiting a race. Remember it was David who won and not the
Goliath.
Lastly the
factor which I think is most important and should always be considered first is
to know which game to play. When I say knowing which game to play doesn't mean
the game where you have better chances to win, but the one which is worth
fighting for. So when have you decided to stop losing?
