It it to Win It!

There will be winners and losers in every scenario of life, whether in sport, in business, in relationships and even in playing a board game, at home with family.  Just about everything is designed for this situation and as humans it does not take us long in our formative years, to discover the concept.  Both winning an losing have become habits, with the one being sought after and the other being discouraged.  We are exposed to TV and even there the mentality, is towards a winner and loser, whether it be in a cooking show like Masterchef, or a singing competition like Idols, or general knowledge like Who Wants to be a Millionaire.  The concept is very much prevalent in sport with huge sums of money and careers playing out in the pursuit of victory, above defeat.  There is pressure of huge proportions brought to bear on players and coaches, to ensure that they perform at their highest levels and come out on top.  Yet even as this scene plays out in our lives on a daily basis, there is much being done in schools to encourage participation, rather than winning and losing.  This is designed to give all children an opportunity to be exposed to different academic, social and sporting models, without the concern of whether they win the contest, or come second.  It almost seems ironic, because while they are encouraged to not worry about winning, the whole world is designed to commence the battle, as soon a they are old enough.  I understand the concept well enough of the importance of winning and how losing can feel truly devastating and unpleasant.  Rules are broken and manipulated and victory is guaranteed in many ways, as long as the result is achieved.  In sport things like bank balance make a huge difference, because teams can be bought and this means that they end up with squads of players that are the best in the world, because they simply have enough resources to put a team on the field that can beat anything else in their league.  But now there are competitions designed to match these teams from different countries together and in this way, they are then creating even more scenarios and opportunities for winning and losing. One sometimes wonders what the effect would have been had TV not come into the mix so much with advertising rights etc and whether the games would have developed and grown so much.  Nevertheless this concept is here to stay and our children and ourselves are thrust into the Frey almost daily.  I am an advocate, that the most important aspect of wining remains the attitude with which you conduct yourself.  You can be a winner, but remain humble and fixed on important values and the difference between winners and losers lies more for me in the way it is achieved, than in the actual result.  Because life is so geared towards the concept, the win is to be achieved from being purposeful but respectful, committed but appreciative of the gifts we have been given, competitive but honest in the implementation and driven, but not to the point where the result becomes more important than the blessing of the opportunity to do the activity.  There must remain a level of enjoyment in all we do and hopefully winning does not become the only thing at all cost, but rather the pinnacle of hard work, dedication and passion for what we do.