William Christensen 8/25/08 (14)
I often hear someone say, “Winning isn’t everything.” Upon further inquiry, I receive the answer, “It’s alright if you don’t win, all that matters is that you did your best.” This is taught to everyone at a young age. All that matters is that you do your best.
Your Best
You are capable of doing whatever you want. All you have to do is work for it. You set your limits. In your mind, you can only be as much as you can imagine. I think you can see what I am getting at. Lets use a game for example. There is a blow out win. The other team didn’t score anything. The coach for the losing team says to his team, “That’s alright. As long as you did your best, it doesn’t matter how well you did.” So, the players take this as consolation. They did their best, so everything is all right. But what are they unconsciously telling themselves? That even when they perform best, they are losers. That they can never do better, because they did their best. Quite the reward for doing your best.
The Rewards of Winning vs. Losing
In the Olympics, the winner receives a gold medal, and gets all the glory. The person who tried really really hard, but got 5th, doesn’t get anything. In a Football Championship game, the winners get the trophy, and the glory. The other team, who tried really really hard, doesn’t get anything. In a business, the person who gets the promotion gets all the benefits. Not the person who tried really really hard. The winners in all these situations tried even harder. They didn’t set limits. Doing “their best” wasn’t enough.
Don’t set limits
A limit is a restriction. Why restrict how great you can be? Why restrict how much good you can do? Why should we say, “doing your best” is enough? Is America a bunch of pansies? The greatest nation on earth, and everyone wants to hold hands and sing. We did our best, we lost, you are better than us, let’s all be friends and watch butterflies! I am not saying that we should not show good sportsmanship. I am saying we shouldn’t go out and skip around thinking that everything is going to be all right as long as we “do our best.” Doing our best is a restriction. We say, “oh, I did my best, lost, I’m done.” We have to be better than that. Do better than you think you can. Don't be a winer and say, “But I did my best.” That means the same thing as, “I'm a loser!”
This is not to say you should be devastated when you lose, you should use that as encouragement to do better.
3 comments:
I love the first 2/3 of this article and but came to a different conclusion.
In games, games are a type of simulation, bob says he is faster the frank, the way to test this is to 'simulate' it or in other words, to race. To find out what the outcome actually is. So your right that games are much more about winning than "doing your best". We compete, willing ourselves to win, trying our very hardest, but we still might lose. That doesn't mean they tried harder. Say bob is from the mountains and Frank from downtown New York. Chances are bob will win because of the high altitude and lack of smog. Bob may smoke past frank even if they put the same amount of effort into it. Games aren't about how good you can do, it's about doing better then the other guy.
But Life is not a game and should not be treated as such. Life IS about "doing your best" it's racing the clock instead of your neighbor. It's seeing how well you can do in this life. Education for example should not be gained so you can be Smarter then the other guy. But be the best you can be before your life on earth is over.
Is America full of pansies? No, we just really like playing games. Our 'presidential elections' have turned into 'political races'. It's about winning more then it is about what is right. You still find an occasional position who has 'doing his best' in mind rather then 'the finish line'.
JoW, I think you came to the same conclusion. I believe you worded things differently. The problem with doing your best is that people use that and say, "This is my best, and I can't do better." It is the mental restriction that should be avoided. I feel that in order to do your best, you have to do better than you think you can.
Competition bad. Free Market bad. It's just not fair.
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