Losing Could Be The Next Big Thing
Losing Could Be The Next Big Thing
By Jeremy Gulley
Butler University’s loss Monday night in the NCAA title game won’t hurt them for long. They played poorly – in fact, they shot the lowest percentage of any team in final game in tournament history. Awful . . . they played awful.
But it won’t hurt them for long, because they’re losers. I know that in most cases, the term loser has a bad connotation, but in the sense I’m using it, the positive outweighs the negative.
Let me explain.
One thing about our American society is unmistakable true: we love to win. From the time we are born, the message we get from movies, television, school and our parents has a “be the best” message that gives being number one a high priority.
And there is absolutely nothing wrong with this message.
Why would we not want to be our best in whatever we do? My dad used to tell me that if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing right, and I can’t find the issue with this message.
However, if, through the pursuit of being the best we lose the ability to learn from, and maybe even enjoy losing, we’ve lost an important aspect of life.
The ability to lose well is not something that we generally hold with high regard in our daily lives. Loses and mistakes are seen as stigmas. They are covered up, glossed over, or otherwise explained away. Being seen as a “loser” is one of the most terrifying things we can think of.
But how do we learn to win unless we also learn to lose?
Case in point: this year’s Butler Bulldogs basketball team. They entered the tournament as an 8 seed (out of 16 possible in four different divisions) because they endured some rough loses during the regular season. But these loses, a 15 point loss to Louisville in their opening game, double digit loses to Duke and a home lose to underdog Evansville, are arguable what made the Butler team successful in the tournament.
Sports announcers, fans, and anyone with an opinion will describe a team as just “knowing how to win.” But the Butler team just “knows how to lose.” Losing builds character. Losing builds unity. Losing builds, if nothing else, distaste for losing. If we don’t lose, how can we know how to win?
Kansas, on the other hand, endured only two loses before entering the tournament. When they lost to VCU in the quarter finals, it was seen as an upset. But when compared to the story of Butler it doesn’t seem to hard to explain. Where Kansas was afraid to lose, being a top seed and a tournament favorite with a lot to lose, played to not lose – they didn’t know how to lose and didn’t want to learn.
But Butler, a team who had endured loses, several of them quite ugly, during the season, played to win, because they already knew how to lose.
In our lives, if we avoid loses, we end up like Kansas – afraid to lose, scared of failure, and our identity becomes precariously balanced on a divide between success and failure. But if we embrace our mistakes and look our loses in the eye, I believe that, like Butler, our successes will be more enjoyable, and perhaps easier to come by. Losing in the title game does not make the Butler University basketball team losers, it makes them good losers.
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Posted by admin
on Apr 6 2011. Filed under Jeremy Gulley, Opinion.
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