The Art of Losing

"What a weird title for a post!!! " " Who wants to learn how to lose?? " "Has this guy gone mad?? "

These may be the responses of some of the people who read this. But, I have my own reasons for naming a post like this.

I believe, just like winning . losing is also an art. By that I am not talking about the way the Indian team has mastered the art of snatching defeat from the hands of victory. That is not what I want to discuss. What I want to discuss about is the attitude of some people who believe that losing is the most humiliating act. Of course, we all believe in winning and try our level best to win. But there are circumstances where there may be someone who is much better than us and we do lose. It is at times like these that the art of losing comes into picture.

By "Art of Losing", I mean how to behave properly and accept defeat gracefully if u lose. This is one thing which I believe the parents has to teach their young ones right from day one. But ironically, it is the same parents who are responsible in making them sore losers. (well most of the parents atleast). Right from day one they want their kids to perform well in school. Nothing bad in that. Some of them can perform well, while some can't. So what do the parents do?? The same thing all the parents in the past have done and most probably will continue to do in the future too, compare them with their peers.

Here comes the tricky part. I for one believe that comparison is good. It measures u with ur peers and most of the times it eggs u on to do something much better. But the tricky part in comparison is finding that thin line till where u can encourage your kid and being within it. You need to convey the message that while u appreciate what he/she has done, they can still do better. By comparing with someone, u need to set the target which u want the kid to achieve. If u do it the right way, it will be like, "Its good u have got this much marks, but I believe u can do much more better. See X, I think u can get similar marks like. Try to get somewhere around that". But if u do it wrong, it becomes like," Why can't u do well?? See X, he/she is so good. Why can't u be like him/her?. Next time I need you to get more marks from her ".

So what happens the next time if the kid gets more marks from what they had got last time, but still lesser marks from X ( remember less by 0.5 is also less). If the right technique was used, the kid doesn't feel like a loser, but in the other technique, it just hits the kids morale. He thinks that he is a loser, but will not want to accept it. So he starts finding mistakes in others, complaining that the teacher is partial to X and so on. This is where u need to know "The Art of Losing"

Now if u people are wondering what's wrong with this guy and why is he talking about kids, my apologies for that. Actually I never wanted to get into that part, but it just came about in the flow. What I wanted to talk was about the attitudes of some of teams and people when they lose.

Now if u want specific examples, Arsenal FC, Chelsea (Sometimes when they do lose) and Fernando Alonso comes to my mind. Arsenal are always known to be sore losers, but are now getting accustomed to losing coz of the last season, where they lost many times away from home. But I just can't understand the attitude of Alonso. First time he loses, he claims that the FIA has fixed the race and they want Schumacher to win. Next race he loses, he goes on to blame his team mate telling that he is no good and he is not giving adequate cover. Now he has gone on record to claim that his team doesn't want him to win. Now come on, can there be something more ridiculous than this?? Well wait there is. Next Alonso goes on to blame his team mate again. To quote him "The cars were side by side on the straight, he overtook me so there was no team play. Maybe even the opposite." He goes on to claim, that he felt he was left alone. Gimme a break. Can somebody tell him that they are supposed to be racing and it is not his team mates mistake that Alonso was driving slowly. Just because he is his team mate doesn't mean that he always have to be behind him, even though he has a better car. Reminds me of a kid throwing his playthings out of the pram.

Agreed u r paid to win races, but just because you don't win, you can't go around claiming that the whole world is against U. Accept defeat gracefully. Accept that on the given day someone else was better than U. Stop whinging about the whole world just because you lost.

Hope now I made it clear why Losing (gracefully) is an art too.