Did You Win?!

We all live in a competitive world. So its natural to have asked this question to someone and also been questioned at least once in lifetime. Have you given a thought about what “winning” means? As parents or elders we teach our kids to win. But have we taught them to accept loss? Win and lose are two sides of the same coin called life. We have all learnt winning is good and no one likes to lose. When we want to win, unknowingly we wish someone else to lose. So ideally in the world everyone is wishing for the other person to lose. This leads us to a losing world.

Now let’s change the theory behind winning and losing. We all know our life is what we make out of it. There are so many quotes which motivates us to do better with every opportunity. When in school we are graded for every activity. Our report card shows us how we started with the first unit test and how we finished in the final assessment. The basic thought behind the progress report is how have you improved from your yesterday and how well are you prepared for your tomorrow. But rather we ask “are you better than the other student in your class?” When the report card is a personal record why do we inculcate competition with rest of the world? When we start competing with others, we unknowingly end up fighting someone else’s battle. Focusing on improving yourself helps change the definition of winning that is set by the outside world.

I was admitted an year early to school, so most of the kids in my class were a year older. The effect was evident during competitions in younger classes. My mother always told, “you would have got first prize if you competed with kids of your age”. Unknowingly the feeling to win a competition developed within me. I believed competition will always be with equals until I grew up. 2^nd standard kid competes with 2^nd standard kid, girls compete with girls in sports events, competition for kids below 8years etc. all such categorization vanish the moment you are an adult. Once you start knowing what life is, then 35year old person also does the same work what a 50 year old person does, a mother may be 25 years, 50years or even 80years the competition will be same, a female employee must compete with a male irrespective of the society norms and various other factors. Life is no longer a fair place for competition, but we still continue the competition and keep asking the same question: “Did you win?” I am a single child and never had a constant comparison at home. This helped me see things differently. I hate the concept of comparison between two different individuals. We always say no two individuals are alike, but we compete with each other with same set of rules to get the same result and check who wins.

Competition in life starts with small things like a race, dance, drawing, exam etc. which has no end. When we are kids, comparison starts from your very first milestone i.e., which month did  you sit, stand, spoke your first word, when did you get your first tooth etc. but as we become adults competition has no basic ground rules. I join a job and my competition starts with someone who is working for 10 years and suddenly I am supposed to win the race of life. Winning doesn’t end with obvious competitions actually these obvious competitions sow seeds of seeing everything in life as win or lose. We say apples and oranges cant be compared but when we ask the question “did you win?” we end up doing the same.

We enter the world as individuals, live life with family and friends, lead the journey as an individual and reach the destination of death alone. Our journey of life is not about competition, it is about how truthfully we lead each day better than our yesterday. Winning can be justified if we know our true self, respect what we have, show gratitude to what we get and make the gift of life, worthwhile. Life is not black and white, it is filled with colors. When each day becomes better than our yesterday, a new shade of color is added. My shade is different from yours which means my competitions or as we grow old we call them as battles of life is different from yours. Everyone wins the battle of life everyday adding new shades of colors to life. Don’t let society define your new shade. Compete with yourself to make a better you each day because no one knows you better than yourself and no one can write rule book of your life. Just like every individual is unique, every competition is unique for that individual.

Did you win?
Yes, I did because my today looks better than my yesterday.
I did win…!