Losing Isn't Winning

@Finn dAbuzz,

That's nice, but I have never known anyone to call someone who lost a tennis game, etc., a loser.

Maybe I've not been in enough locker rooms.

I've also not been on a football field in the front line (laughs), where trash is probably near soporific.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

There are several holes in your logic Finn.

No, there are several holes you would like to imagine exist so that your "logic" prevails

1) There are plenty of athletes who competed without expecting to win. They had the attitude of just doing their best and many of them ended up winning first place.

Like who?

There is nothing wrong with competing without expecting victory, but if you cannot imagine victory, you will not achieve it, unless you fool yourself and enter a competition in which you don't belong.

Athletes who enter competitions realizing it is unlikely that they will win do so because they hope that the competition will improve their game to the point where they can hope to win.

2) Everyone knows the story of the Jamaican bobsled team in the 1988 winter Olympics. The fact is not only didn't they come in first, they didn't officially finish. I bet you can't name the first place winner that year without Googling it. The Jamaicans earned great applause because of their achievement and it was the Jamaicans who got the movie deal.

Yes, they achieved something important, but they didn't win. It's great that their efforts resulted in a movie (for which probably none of them saw a dime), because it was a great human interest story. What happened the next few times they qualified? They lost and no one considered them heroes or winners. I would guess that if you searched down all of the Jamaican bobsleders they would say that they were very proud of their accomplishment, but that they didn't win. BTW - I knew the Swiss team won the 4 man bobsled in '88 without using Google.

3) The "Kids these days" argument is as clichéd as it is false. People have been making this argument since the time of Ovid. And there is almost never any evidence the kids these days have any less character or work ethic than kids of earlier generations. It only feels true.

The "kids these days" are occupying Wall Street. The truth of the matter is that for most of the many years since Ovid, parents were not telling their kids that they won when they lost, insisting on competition in which the score was not kept, and giving trophies to anyone who participated.

4) I get that it might "grate" on you that people might be enjoying themselves even though you are superior to them. But, that is your problem no theirs. The ability to enjoy yourself does make you a winner in the global game of living a good life.

No you don't "get it."

I'm perfectly fine with people enjoying themselves, but it does grate on me when they insist that a significant element of their enjoyment is a lie...because the lie feels better than the truth.

Again, these folks are not teaching their kids anything of value.

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@ossobuco,

And your point is?

It is unlikely that many actual competitors call one another "losers," but I thought we were discussing the general usage of the term, not it's usage by athletes.

1 Reply

@Finn dAbuzz,

Quote:

The "kids these days" are occupying Wall Street.

I am guessing you don't think this is a good thing?

If you had said the "kids these days" crashed the economy with their greed and then collected their bonuses anyway you would have had a greater chance of me seeing your point.

Whether you agree with the Occupy protesters or not, you can't say they aren't working hard, and sacrificing, to try to make society better.

Since they have already changed the national conversation to include wealth disparity to the point it is even now part of the Republican primary, I would say they are winning.

1 Reply

@Finn dAbuzz,

Plenty here in this discussion seem to equate it.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Quote:

) There are plenty of athletes who competed without expecting to win. They had the attitude of just doing their best and many of them ended up winning first place.
Like who?
There is nothing wrong with competing without expecting victory, but if you cannot imagine victory, you will not achieve it, unless you fool yourself and enter a competition in which you don't belong.
Athletes who enter competitions realizing it is unlikely that they will win do so because they hope that the competition will improve their game to the point where they can hope to win.

And not just athletes - anyone who gets involved in a competition. Recently my daughter and some classmates competed in a district spelling bee - she worked hard and as she told me - felt that she would make the top 3 to go on to the regionals. She did and a classmate of hers did as well.

He said - oh I wasn't really trying and wasn't planning on making it. She told me - I could tell he really did care and was trying. Sometimes kids and others say they don't and do not imagine themselves winning, but often times - I think it is to save face so if they don't it appears as if they didn't care and lost because they did not try.

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@Linkat,

Linkat wrote:

. , . I think it is to save face so if they don't it appears as if they didn't care
and lost because they did not try.

Not just kids.

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@ossobuco,

Quote:

I've also not been on a football field in the front line (laughs), where trash is probably near soporific.

Well...you can't have football without smack talk. Where's the fun in that?
I MUST use soporific in a sentence today Osso.

Eh...Most people want to blow off the bad feeling they get when they lose. I think it is because their identity is too much attached to it. I keep telling the boys they are not what they do...or being the best at it. Their identity comes from a wealth of other things. Hopefully things that mean more than winning or losing.

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@Linkat,

I think kids also get pushback for being too obviously trying to do, well, anything. When I started that sentence I was going for "trying to do well in academics," and that's true, but really it's trying too hard at nearly anything except for sports.

Cool = not trying. Trying = not cool.

(I don't think that's new at all btw, not that you said it was, but there's been a "what is the world coming to" slant to the discussion in general.)

1 Reply

@sozobe,

I agree it isn't new. I remember being made fun of because I did so well on a test - being called a brain and stuff from some other kids because they sucked big time on the test.

I also see this more in boys - boys really want to look cool - (maybe not completely true - but just what I've seen).

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@maxdancona,

You're guessing right.

I can say they are not working hard, and their sacrifices are much the same as some of us made at Woodstock...how noble!

That you see pointless street parades and camping in filth to be "working hard," is pretty telling.

Oh yes, the national conversation is all about wealth disparity!

I can't turn on my TV without seeing someone talking about wealth disparity, and wealth disparity is the number one concern for Iowans who will particpate in the upcoming caucuses. Every Sunday morning news/opinion talk show is concentrating on wealth disparity.

When I pick up my paper in the morning the headlines consistently scream "What about the wealth disparity!"

The national Liberal conversation may very well be about wealth disparity, but everyone else is talking about something else.

The "kids" among OWS don't want to compete, they want to get the same trophy for participating that they got in peewee soccer.

They were taught that you don't need to excel to be rewarded, you need only show up and make like you're part of the team.

They took out loans to pay for their education and they seem to think that because they actually got a degree (notwithstanding it took 6 to 7 years for many of them) that they deserve the prize of waiving their debt.

This very prominently includes the ones who majored in obscura from which the only jobs possible are the handful that teach numbskull kids the very obscura that is worthless.

I value personal responsibility and so I'm not about to give these kids a free pass simply because their parents failed them, but their parents did fail them.

How did they fail them?

By inculcating them with the notion that one only needs to show up for work to succeed in a career.

Why did they fail them?

Because, true to their Baby Boomer heritage, they are all about themselves.

They wanted and needed to have their kids succeed in every venture because they saw it as reflecting upon themselves. Obviously every kid is not going to succeed in every venture and so the answer was to jigger the game so that every kid could be said to have succeeded.

The bullshit was that it was about the kids' self-esteem when it was all about the parental ego.

These are same parents that will, reliably, try to sell us the nonsense that they and their kids are more like friends than parents and children.

Everytime I hear some idiot spout this crap, I know that I am listening to a bad parent.

In this and virtually every other subject it comes down to the Liberal wanting to be seen as cool

How sad.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

I sense a lot of anger in you Finn.

1 Reply

@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn; people may seem to be talking about many different things... They are dealing with murcuric symptoms... We have had government by the wealthy since the beginning, and even the income tax which was supposed to bring just taxation to the wealthy was soon put upon everyone who could bear it to relieve the rich... Some people are asking for equal rights, and some are asking for freedom, and some are asking for security, and some are asking for enough to eat, and a place to sleep, and some are asking for opportunity, and some are asking for a decent education at a price they can afford... I have left many out; but I promise you that all of us witnessing our society coming apart at the seams are seeing the effects of wealth disparity which is really the disparity of rights, and inequality before the law...All of us deal with the largest problem before us, and few have the vision to see what the real problem is, that would hardly be lessened for a moment if wealth could be made equal... We need to change our form of government and our form of economy... Changing humanity to make all love virtue and justice will be near impossible...As long as people love injustice so long as they benefit from it we will never have justice in our lives... When we talk about moral forms like justice, liberty, equality, and happiness we must understand that no one can have more than they are willing to concede...

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@Finn dAbuzz,

I had some one reporting to me that had just that sort of attitude and opinion - he no longer works here.

He thought just by showing up he deserved a raise and bonus - however, when bonus time came around and I told him he was not meeting the expectations of his job (should have been no surprise as he was spoken about his poor performance many times previously), he got upset and begin blabbering about how everyone pulls together and about some nonsense up others picking up as a team when one is not as strong. He used some sort of imagine of us all rowing together.

Sorry buddy but that doesn't fly. Under me, he was "managed out". Nice guy, but he did not have the talent for the job. But I wasn't gonna reward him for being a nice guy.

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@maxdancona,

Very astute of you.

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@Linkat,

Good for you. Unfortunately, his ploy would have succeeded with many a current manager.

The problem is (and why I'm angry about this subject) that the sort of behavior you describe is rampant in this country. It hurts us all.

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@Linkat,

Quote:

I had some one reporting to me that had just that sort of attitude and opinion - he no longer works here.

It is seems like there are some people who just like to complain.

You had one employee that was a problem in your opinion. This is not "rampant". How many good employees do you have. I have found that the vast majority of people I work with to be decent and hard working. This includes the "kids these days" as I now call the twenty somethings now joining my workplace.

And this attitude you are describing is not new either

Charles Dickens described this attitude, of employees expecting too much for the work they do, in his seasonal story -- The Christmas Carol" -- over 150 years ago. You should read it.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

so sorry I was simply providing a real life example of what some one above was describing. I wasn't stating whether this was rampart or not just providing a real life extreme example and the fact that they do exist.

I have found actually that most people are in between - not extreme workers or extreme slack offs and their opinions of what is valued in the workplace and what is of value to them vary greatly.

And of course I don't have many of these people working for me because when they do - they are managed out. It is not an appropriate attitude for my kind of work.

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Losing Isn't Winning

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