“Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing” is a well-known sports mantra. It exemplifies a form of unfettered competitiveness that has permeated American sports. Its assertion about the importance of winning has been touted as a basic tenet of the American sports creed and, at the same time, singled out as encapsulating what is purportedly right with competitive sports.
We learn at a very early age about winning and losing. It starts on the 4-square or dodge-ball courts. There has to be a winner; and ultimately a loser. You hear preachers speak of “winning souls;” on the news we’ve become immune to the phrase “winning the war on terror,” in politics we often hear, “may the best man win,” and sometimes you’ll even quip, “what really matters is how you play the game.” Yeah right!
Is winning only what happens when someone else loses?
I attended a seminar in 1997 where the facilitator asked the question, “does someone have to win in order for them to be right?” This got everyone thinking. Then he asked, “if someone has to get hurt for you to be right, is it worth it?” Sadly, it was a split response from the crowd. He then drilled a little deeper to ask, “could you go through life being right, without forcing someone to acknowledge that fact?” It took a while, but again a split audience. Then he concluded, “what do you stand to gain by making someone else wrong?” The answers ranged from ego to power to satisfaction and then everyone, as if simultaneously enlightened, seemed to “get it” …winning isn’t everything. And to quote Road House, one of my favorite cliché movies chock full of corny lines, “nobody ever wins a fight.” But how true that is in life and in business.
Society has taught us that being right is most important, but I’ve recently tried (and failed and tried yet again) an exercise in not making people wrong so that I can be right. I call it an exercise, but really, it’s an ongoing work-in-process because I forget, I get self-righteous then I begin again.
I first started by trying to catch myself sooner in the digression. Then I began counting to 10 before I opened my trap…it helped, but the urge was still there…it still is. One of the antonyms of winning is the word unattractive…which is exactly how I have to picture myself: making someone admit that I am right and they are wrong is not a pretty sight.
One day I hope to be rid of my need for superiority and righteousness, but until then I’ll just keep practicing. Until I get it mastered, I’m adding a constant question to my vernacular; “who wins by me being right?”
Christy, You have never been MORE right with this article! Excellent! A gold star! KAT
Chrysty, Thank goodness I’m always “right” when I read your work! I always think about the saying “would you rather be right or would you rather be happy.” Thanks again for not only pointing me but keeping me on the “right” path. (I’m all about the rightiouness now girly-lol)
Hallo Christy,
Is the first time I read one of your posts. You are right, we are growing up believing that we mast be all the time winners or that some one has to acknowledge that we are right . That’s very wrong.We can be right and we may not . Some times we win and others we loose, but that’s not so important , if you can see it from a differend prospective. It becomes very important, to most if not all of us,when our ego gets in and we want to be winners or we want to be acknowledge that we are right.
How many times we learn friendships got destroyed or marriages end because of ego and nothing else.If we could only see the good side of every one and not the worse side.I believe to have little bit ego is good to one point but not more than that.
In the times we live, some times we forget that once a wile we can be wrong and we can loose with out loose our dignity and respect for our selves.
Thank you for this article, I will read more from now on
Aspassia. A
https://c5worldwide.infusionsoft.com/go/trmp/aspaarva/