LOSER LESSONS FOR A LIFETIME OF HOPE

Loser lessons make good winners. The trick is finding context.

The particular context is knowing you’re not a lifetime loser because of a few events that didn’t turn our your way.

I’ve had a few, you’ve had a few. Anyone who says they haven’t had a few are only lying to themselves.

Some loser lessons are harder to figure out. Every time anything similar comes up, we’re reminded of the last outcome. That, my friends, is a mental health issue, and this is mental health month.

I checked the calendar.

Feeling the loser feeling is a habit, and not a good one. Comfortable? Yes, but still not good.

Take personal relationships, for example.

The wonderful girl with lifetime companion potential you met after high school?

She had it all. Beautiful, smart, fun, the whole package. And your mother loved her too.

You did everything together and she never wavered. She was your girl, you were her guy.

After a few years you dump her. Why? Because she didn’t knit you a sweater. That was your sign of true love.

As a result you mourn the one that got away the rest of your life. Never married, no kids, not even another girlfriend. What is wrong with this picture?

If that sounds like you, or someone you know, you’re doing it wrong.

Instead of wallowing in self pity, use the experience to grow.

The first thing for guys to grow is a pair.

Take the experience of a broken heart, sweater or no sweater, and make it fit in your chest. It should be easy since it’s in pieces.

Then take the best part and use it as a guide. This comes with a warning: the breaking will happen again. Yes, the first cut is the deepest, but it’s time to love again.

Loser Lessons From Sports

Put yourself in these shoes:

You’re on an all-star sports team, say an all-star wrestling team, and you’re on tour.

For a month you travel the midwest from town to town competing against the best the region has to offer.

You share the wins and losses, but since you’re all-stars, the losses are few.

The friends you make feel like friends for life.

Then you come to the big tournament, the biggest in the country at the time, with the top award the size of a car hubcap that looks good on any wall of fame.

For the second to last match you have to face your new buddy. In the national finals round robin of three, he’d already beat the other guy on points. Your match ends in a 3-3 tie of good sportsmanship.

Now you face the guy he beat. Since your best buddy pointed him, you need to pin him for the top spot.

Because it’s a Greco-Roman match, the pin is judged by touch. If an opponent’s shoulders touch the mat at the same time it takes the referee to drop his hand six inches to the mat, you win.

However, the ref doesn’t go to the mat. Ever. You throw the guy three times, pin him three times, and the ref doesn’t notice. But, you do.

You also notice your new best friend cheering for the other guy because he wants the title more than he wants a friend. After losing by a point there’s little sportsmanship. Or friendship.

That doesn’t make you a bad friend when you think ‘fuck that guy,’ but it is a cautionary tale of hurt feelings.

If you’re only a loser, and not a quitter, take what you’ve learned and put it in your suitcase of experience.

Loser Lesson At Work

Imagine the best job you could ever have, a dream job.

Say you left home, lived in other states, saw life lived different ways, and got homesick.

You come back home determined to do work that matters most to where you live.

The time flies by, you get married, have kids, take classes, move up. Your dedication and loyalty pave the road to a bright future.

The company is local, the bosses are local, you’re local. Then some people get old and retire, or get forced out, and new bosses come in to use the company as their personal stepping stone.

One of the new bosses is a funky transient professional on the five year plan. They come in as the new flavor of the day, get soured, then move on.

In between the coming and going they reveal themselves as unrepentant shit-talkers. After enough is enough, you take their sexist, racist, attitude to HR. Except the new boss is given a pass and you get the dirty end of the stick.

A workplace counselor comes in to smooth things out and explain why one was given a pass. Then they pull out a document for you to sign, not the other person.

The experience is a blinding example of ass covering. Now you’re the loser? No, but if buying into the fix is anything, it shows how far people are willing to push when they are wrong.

In other words, it’s not you, it’s them. Don’t expect a hand knitted sweater on the way out the door.

What are your loser lessons? Share them here, it’s just between us.

Did you get a sweater?