Our ambition to win must match our resources, be it physical or material or mental; in our life there will always be winner and loser!
Every culture in the world has different kinds of traditional sports which we learn and play during childhood. These sports bind us with our friends and communities. At the international level Olympic games bind all nations of the world as one big family. There are individual sports such as golf and tennis and team sports such as soccer, which is probably the most played sport globally. There are winners and losers in all sports. But sport is also an entertainment: it is not just about winning (or losing). It is like our life. Everyone wants to win but as in sports there will always be a winner and a loser in life.
In our life education we are taught to win, all the time. We are never taught how to embrace defeat, knowingly that losing is a distinct possibility. We should perhaps consider it as a setback rather than defeat. It is an essential social skill in our society that everyone must learn, but seriously lacking. Life is about finding an equilibrium with society and nature rather than winning or losing. People have been obsessed with winning. In fact, winning has become greed.
In management education there are no provisions for failure. Failure is simply not an option. It defies reality. This rigid thinking of ‘must win’ is possibly one of the reasons why people are so unhappy, not being able to accept the loss. People tend to burst with emotions and even go into depression when they lose without understanding the reason for the loss. You must have seen some of the best sportsmen and sportswomen burst with anger when they lose. Everyone wants to be a winner but in life, like in sports people tend to forget that there are others who are better than themselves.
The recent case of racial abuse against the three English penalty strikers during the final game of European Soccer highlights the mindset of people on the idea of must win at all cost. No one wants to lose but it is a game; sometimes it is a matter of luck or sometimes misjudgment that leads people to lose. But people can always bounce back.
Translate that to national elections we see the same drama unfolding everywhere. More often than not we hear the losing political parties accuse the winner of manipulating the ballot box, thus starts the blame game and finger pointing and name calling. In the electoral history recorded internationally there have been at least 174 claims of electoral frauds by the losing political parties since record keeping started internationally. This is at the national level; at the sub-national level there are many more such claims.
As an adult people must have the ability to accept defeat gracefully. People need to accept the fact there is a need for improvement be it sport or contesting a national election. Blaming others for the defeat will not improve the loser’s position.
Unfortunately, how to accept failure is not part of any school curriculum. It is the lesson of the social fabric of our society that individuals have to learn as a social skill. It is the hidden curriculum of our social being. Coping with failure is critical in our life lesson. People can bounce back like in sport. It is essential to examine the reason for failure through self-criticism rather than accusing the winner. Our ambition to win must match our resources, be it physical or material or mental!
Let us live life like a sport and enjoy!
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