LIFE’S LESSONS
By Henrylito D. Tacio
Life is a matter of competition. Without competition, life would be boring. Growing up, we compete with our siblings. In school, we compete with our classmates. At work, we compete with our colleagues. In love, we compete with our rivals. “May the best man win” is a rather hackneyed statement.
“Competition is a fact of life,” wrote Richard Carlson, author of the best-selling, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff. “To pretend that it doesn’t exist, or that you should avoid it at all costs, would be ridiculous.”
Richard Carlson: competing is not small stuff
Just like me, Carlson was very competitive when he was still young. More so, when he grew up. “As an adult, my love of competition has continued, not only in sports, but in business as well,” he disclosed. “I love to negotiate, buy low, and sell high. I’m proud to be creative, and I’d like to believe I have a flair for marketing.”
He describes the publishing world as “fiercely competitive.” He explains: “I love to see my books doing well, and it’s fun to get a standing ovation after a speech. I could certainly make the argument that if I didn’t compete well, I wouldn’t be helping very many people. So, it’s important that I compete.”
But Carlson reminds us that if ever you compete, do it right – with the right attitude, convincing power, and strong determination. More importantly, compete from the heart.
“To compete from the heart means that you compete less from a desperate or neurotic need to achieve, and more out of a love for what you do,” he explains. “Competing is its own reward. You are completely immersed in the process, absorbed in the present moments of the activity…
“When you compete from your heart, the process itself provides satisfaction, winning is secondary,” he continues. “When looked at in this healthier way, your life becomes so much easier. You play hard – and then let go. You bounce back almost instantly. You’re resilient. You’re a good sport.”
Sometimes, we win, sometimes we lose. That’s life. It’s a rollercoaster ride: it goes up and then it goes down. We are dependent upon the surroundings we are now in. We are not in control of everything.
But there are people who believe in the adage that goes this way: “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” Carlson doesn’t think that way. “The philosophy stems from the fear that if you aren’t consumed with winning, you never will win. I can tell you that I’m not consumed with winning – never have been, never will be – yet I’ve won many awards, contests, and first-place finishes. But none of my competitive accomplishments would mean anything to me if they weren’t from the heart…”
Winning isn’t everything – or is it?
Again, life isn’t always about winning. Singer Lady Gaga, who received her first Oscar for her first screen appearance in the fourth remake of A Star Is Born, once said: “Sometimes, in life you don’t always feel like a winner; but that doesn’t mean you’re not a winner.”
Winning and losing don’t define a person. Listen to what Lance Armstrong wrote in Every Second Counts: “When you win, you don’t examine it very much, except to congratulate yourself. You easily, and wrongly, assume it has something to do with your rare qualities as a person. But winning only measures how hard you’ve worked, and how physically talented you are; it doesn’t particularly define you beyond those characteristics.”
On losing, Armstrong said: “Losing on the other hand, really does say something about who you are. Among other things, its measures are: do you blame others, or do you own the loss? Do you analyze your failure, or just complain about bad luck?”
His words of wisdom on the matter: “If you’re willing to examine failure, and to look not just at your outward physical performance, but your internal workings, too, losing can be valuable. How you behave in those moments can perhaps be more self-defining than winning could ever be. Sometimes losing shows you for who you really are.”
How winning – or losing – can define who you really are
But how do you differentiate winners from losers?
The winner is always part of the answer, while the loser is always a part of the problem. The winner has a program; the loser, an excuse. It’s the winner who says, “Let me do it for you”, while the loser storms out, saying, “It’s not my job.”
The winner sees an answer for every problem, while the loser finds the opposite: a problem in every answer. The winner usually thinks: “It may be difficult, but it’s possible.” And the loser’s attitude: “It may be possible, but it’s too difficult.”
Yes, there are more differences between winners and losers. “Let’s find out,” the winner says, but the loser would say, “Nobody knows.” When a winner makes a mistake, he says, “I was wrong.” When a loser commits an error, he says, “It wasn’t my fault.”
A winner goes through a problem, while a loser goes around it and never gets past it. “I’m good, but not as good as I ought to be,” the winner says. But the loser has this observation, “I’m not as bad as a lot of other people are.”
A winner tries to learn from those who are superior to him. A loser tries to tear down those who are superior to him. A winner says, “There ought to be a better way to do it.” A loser says, “That’s the way it’s always been done here.”
Now, you have an idea whether you have a winning or losing attitude. Here’s a timely reminder from Dara Torres, author of Age is just a number: Achieve your dreams at any stage in your life: “I’ve wanted to win at everything, every day, since I was a kid. And time doesn’t change a person, it just helps you get a handle on who you are. Even at age 41, I still hate losing – I’m just more gracious about it. I’m also aware that setbacks have an upside; they fuel new dreams.”
Again, here is Carlson on competition: “Give it your best effort, compete hard, enjoy every moment – and if you should lose, be happy anyway. This is competing from the heart.” – ###
