What we lose if we choose to avoid losses
A defeat hurts and teaches. It is said that from a defeat we learn but what is hardly ever mentioned is that we prefer to avoid this apprenticeship just as we prefer to avoid a devastating modern allergy. This might be because what is really uncomfortable is not getting up after a fall, but doing it under the piercing stares which wound us from both above and below. Probably without being aware of it, we have become a society which puts into isolation those who try but can’t, rather than those who can’t because they don’t even try. And that is where a dangerous and demotivating model is winning: he who never loses. Because he who never loses misses out on everything else.
We usually learn from a defeat but what is hardly ever mentioned is that we seem to prefer to avoid it Share on XVictory and defeat are two sides of the same coin, impossible to separate. Only he who loses regularly will reach one or more victories. These words are understood as opposites when they are actually communicating vessels. It can’t be a coincidence – and if it were then it ought not to be ignored – that two absolute champions like Lewis Hamilton and Serena Williams embrace and display the catchword ‘Still I Rise’.
It is said that anything goes except not getting yourself up. This idea is accepted and agreed to, although we understand that this time should go back a few minutes so that you are also allowed to fall down. Even the most rounded and inspiring winners, both in sport and in life, as in the case of Serena and Hamilton, have learnt to live with difficult ups and downs both in their professional and personal lives so that they have not only fallen and got themselves back on their feet but they have learnt to do it and to be very aware that without these falls they would never have achieved even a grain of what they have done. And of what they still can go on to achieve.
There is no doubt that each person lives their own reality and comparisons cannot be made. These cannot even be analysed from any external perspective or by an external human being. This is where coordinates are shared which – and taking into account the differences of each individual – can be added up for a positive result no matter what the circumstances are. The person who is born with a series of defeats already incorporated into their lives will get used to living with them, will understand them as a part of themselves and will overcome them once they have seen that not one defeat takes away as much as the fear that it produces and the paralysis that comes from it possibly happening.