Losing is the new winning

Winners are constantly at each other’s throats, plotting strategies to go one better than the rest.
| Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto

Losing anything — a game, an argument, a career opportunity, face, the club raffle, a lover’s hand — appears to be the end of the world. So gutted are you that you think that you need professional help. Before pundits pontificate on changing your attitude, aptitude, altitude or whatever, I must get a word in: don’t. Leave things as they are for you have serendipitously hit upon a profound truth: losing is the new winning.

The reason the world is in such a mess is because people seem to be winning at the expense of living. This obsessive urge to win at all costs starts early with manic moms coaxing their wards to ace the maths scholarship, conquer the STEM challenge, the GK quiz, dramatics… there is virtually no end to the must-win contests. Your child may manage to emerge victorious in some through luck and effort. But it’s what happens post winning that hurts.

Medals come with strings attached. Every schoolchild knows that uneasy lies the head that wears the winner’s crown. Coming out on top even in inter-house elocution puts an albatross round your neck. Will you be able to keep it up next year, the year after that? It’s a burden of expectations under which even seasoned winners have cracked.

Crest and troughs

All things considered, it is better not to win — at least not early in life. While still in his twenties, Orson Wells produced what is widely regarded as the greatest film ever made — Citizen Kane. But alas, that was the crest of his career graph. Although he continued to produce films, everything seemed to go steadily downhill. Since the world is a heartless place, there is no dearth of those who will gleefully hit a man when he is down. An acerbic critic even called Wells the world’s “youngest has-been”. That, my friends, is how our world is wired.

Have you noticed that wannabe winners lead their whole lives in the comparative tense, with the Olympic motto providing insidious encouragement. They do not wish to be fast, high or strong but faster, higher and stronger than the next man. And we all know how these eager-beaver aspirants go about preparing themselves. They hit the road when lesser mortals are asleep luxuriating in the extra hour of sleep which is more precious than gold. Their diets are self-torture by deliberate deprivation and they wage epic battles in the gym every day. Life for them is one long race, with an ear perpetually cocked for the starting gun. Phew! Losing is so much more sensible.

It’s my considered opinion that losers are better socially adjusted and more readily content with themselves. On the other hand, apprentice heroes are constantly at each other’s throats, plotting strategies to go one better than the rest, and if they find that pushing themselves up too burdensome, will not be averse to pulling rivals down.

For some inexplicable reason, if you have a flutter at the race track or lose a card game, it is not taken as a reflection of your capabilities because rummy and races are considered games of chance.

What people fail to realise is that everything in life — examinations, interviews, opportunities — are games of chance in disguise, with life itself being one long-drawn lottery.

Losing carries with it a historical stigma. No poet, philosopher or happiness guru has waxed eloquently in the loser’s cause. The nearest we have is Kipling with the suggestion that we ought to meet with triumph and disaster, and treat these ‘two imposters’ just the same. But that’s scarcely possible given the heady drumbeat of victory which the world whips up and the tearful mourning which follows defeat.

Perhaps we should take a leaf from the American politician of an earlier era who after being soundly beaten in an election, confounded both opponents and supporters by exclaiming: ‘Hurrah! We lost’.

jairam.menon@gmail.com