Winning

The American society is fascinated with winning. In fact to be the best at anything is probably the goal of most Americans. It is what drives us. We have to be the best at our job. We have to be the best in our class. We have to have the best house, car, family, etc. We even have to root for the best sports teams. Charlie Sheen, our great American idol, has even made the phrase, "Winning" popular lately. I don't know what it is but each of us has to be the best. It is funny really because logic says that if one person or group of people wins, then someone has to lose.

Yet grown men and women throw fits when they see their child lose or they lose in an intramural game. Games that don't even matter. You could even say that at the end of the day a result of a professional or collegiate game doesn't even matter in the grand scheme of life. But yet our competitive nature takes over and causes us to become angry, hostile people. Do not get me wrong, I am a competitive person and will do whatever it takes to win a game, but at the end of the day, when the game is over, there is nothing more I can do to change the outcome. I have learned to be satisfied with whatever the outcome. Sure winning is fun, but losing can be just as fun if you have the right attitude.

But most of us don't. We are blinded by our desire to be the best. We feel that our identities are linked to whether we have won or lost. So in the process of the game we lose ourselves and become solely focused on the outcome. We become people we are not, yelling and screaming foul at anything that does not go our way. In the end these are the people who have lost, even if the scoreboard reads differently. "Why?" you ask. Because they missed out on the journey, the thing which is to be most enjoyed. This is how I have learned to have fun losing. I no longer have to be the best, I just enjoy the chance to become it.