Losing Isn't Winning

Should everyone throw John McEnroe tantrums when they lose?


It's called a re-frame.

But who is saying that?

I never said that.

It was right there in the original post.

Yes and I think that cooperate play is also good. Helps you learn to work as a team. Kinda why I mentioned competitive when refering to her particular sports team - it is a competitive serious league. There is nothing wrong with a learning league or coorperative games as well. But then those sorts of things would not have a winner or loser.

That's not saying there is not anything positive in it....it saying it is disappointing to lose - and if you are competitive then your goal is to win otherwise why the heck are you participating in something competitive.

My daughter loses and she doesn't like it - but she always pulls something positive from the experience. This is where I messed up and how I can be better next time sort of thing. You need to accept you faulter and that some one or some team was better than you. That is the acceptance. If you do not accept that - and say - oh they didn't play fair or the ref made too many bad calls against you - you have that attitude you are not going to get anything positive from the situation.

When my siblings and I were growing up, we were always told, "It's not a matter of winning or losing, it's how you play the game". If I had a dollar for every time I heard that, I'd be rich lol. It's not bad advice, though, and I'll probably use it with my kids. IMO, if you play the game right, the rest kind of sorts itself out.

The tone of the original post was clearly, "you lost so shut up and don't call yourself a winner."

I got the "don't call yourself a winner".
I didn't get the "shut up".

If one loses, he can't honestly say he won.
But it does not follow that he can therefore find nothing good in the game.
Nor that he must shut up.

Could be - probably why I responded in a way that I agree - but ....

In competition, yes winning and losing is that black-and-white, if you have a competitive attitude towards it. And yes competitive sports require that mindset, but not everything in life does. A show like American Idol or America's Got Talent, competitive attitude isn't a specific requirement. Yes, you can compete with the other acts, in which case it is win or lose, but if you go in there to test yourself without worrying about competing with the others, it isn't that black-and-white. There are more shades of gray than that. Exceeding your expectations of yourself can make a person a winner if they are not focused on beating the other guy.

If you participate in a competitive activity (like a marathon) for the experience, for the joy of participating, then enjoy yourself.

Most competitions have one winner. I'm not suggesting that participating isn't a good thing. I'm not suggesting that you can't derive pleasure from the activity. But saying that you won just for participating isn't true. You may have won something from the experience. But you didn't win the competition.

drewdad, when I was a little Roberta, I was home sick. My father was playing checkers with me. I finally won a game. I felt wonderful. Then I figured out that he had let me win. I started screaming. Crying. Close to hysteria. The man I loved and trusted had cheated me. I would have preferred to keep losing but to keep trying. I had not won.

There are many things I'm not good at. I pariticipate because I enjoy the experience. I have fun. I derive pleasure from the experience. But I don't win.

Maybe soz is right. Maybe people on these tv shows are encouraged to say something positive. There are plenty of positive things to say without saying that you won.

But they aren't claiming to have won the competition. They're claiming to have won or achieved something besides the competition.

Does someone have to lose in order for you to win?

Never mind

Exactly, nobody has said that. If you read Roberta's first post, she mentioned two separate positive scenarios where someone who lost the game found something really positive about it.

I think Drewdad just wants to wrangle.

I've been a couple hundred road races and four marathons and I didn't win a single time.
Joe(Still doesn't feel like losing.)Nation

I'm being a pain in the ass about the word "win." In a competition, a contest, a game, it means something very specific to me. And yes, if I win, then someone loses.

If someone has participated and gained something positive from the experience, I think that's great. It's generally what I experience.

If you saw and heard the people I'm talking about, you might have the same reaction I've had. The idea of losing seems to be anathema to them. I didn't lose. Yes, you did.

If you enter something to win and you don't win, I don't understand why it's so difficult to accept. Most of us do a lot more losing than winning.

Count me as one of the people who seek to identify the positive aspects, and who refuses to see himself as a loser.

I just want to point out that I am winning this thread. Whether that the means the rest of you are losers is up to you to decide.

It's only disappointing if you expected to win, or even do well. I've entered competitions where I didn't expect to place, let alone win. So, when you do well, but not win, it's not really disappointing.

Cycloptichorn