Winning and losing

I had dinner out the other night, and, while eating outside on the patio, I saw a few kids run by.

One of them shouted, "that didn't count—I won!” and the other turned around with a frown (presumably losing the game).

It struck me all of a sudden how odd it is to win or lose. Or better yet, to live in a culture that places so much value on winning.

You watch a sports game and your favorite team loses the game. What’s that mean? Does it really mean they’re the “lesser-team?” That they’re losers?

Or does it merely mean that, in this situation, they lost the game. A game made up of thousands of actions by players and coaches and refs, happening in real-time, without any one person really competing against another.

Or consider status games. Someone driving a Lamborghini Aventador isn’t better than a person with a Prius. Sure, they may have more in the bank—they might be better off financially—but it’s no signal they’re worth any more than the other.

Status games are played with vanity metrics. A bigger house or a fancy car or an expensive watch doesn’t mean anything (except for whatever perceived value people ascribe to it).

Having a nicer car doesn’t make you a hero. Any more than the person going the fastest on the freeway. And yet, people go to great lengths everyday to feel like they’re better off than their peers—a testament to how childish grownups can be.

Because that’s what a (finite) game really is. It’s child’s play. We don’t shout out loud “I won, you lost,” at the top of our lungs, but we certainly act that way. And many of the things we work towards in life, and spend our hard earned money on, have more to do with making us feel like winners than fulfilling our actual needs.

Alas. Games are embedded in our culture. And so the desire to win (to gain by way of superiority in competition or contest—whether actual or perceived) is hard to ignore. But that doesn’t make neglecting it any less a worthwhile pursuit.

Because, if you’re losing a game—or it feels like you are—it may be in your interest to do whatever it takes to win it. Or it might be a sign that you’d be happier playing an entirely different game—one that you can’t explicitly win or lose—instead.