A good education and family give us keys to know how to succeed or to accept defeat well. It is useful to recall that cartoon in The New Yorker in which a Roman watched a tutor hand out medals to a long line of children and, watching him, said to himself: “This is the beginning of the decline of Rome: everyone has trophy”.
An interesting part of life is learning how to win. Not everyone knows how to do it. The right thing to do would be to win and enjoy it with grandeur, elegance and discretion. Even if they rush me, with humility. But it is essential that it be sincere and that, please, this is not the only virtue of the one who has no other.
Let’s go to defeat: when it’s time to lose. When it’s our turn –because it’s always the turn–, you have to know how to do it with integrity, without exaggeration, without too much fuss. Licking our wounds – which, by the way, also say a lot and often accurately who we are – without spotlights or public address system. A little discretion doesn’t hurt. Decibels are almost always left over.
Every day we are tested: it is part of life. Whether or not we achieve the best grades in an exam; we get promoted in a job position; no matter how well we come out of an election, there will always be winners and losers.
It is difficult to accept the triumph of someone with whom you do not get along and much more if you believe that he has not achieved it according to your values; nothing happens: sometimes you know that you are on the right side by looking at the one in front of you, although it is not necessary to come to a confrontation. Marco Aurelio reminded us that “the best way to defend yourself against them is not to look like them.” That does not mean that we do not have to listen to them, since understanding the other is essential. Only peace is made with rivals. Mandela agreed with De Klerk.
To give us shelter in life, it is convenient to wear good shoes from head to toe. When you’re good in your skin, nothing happens if you don’t win. I can’t think of anything more compelling than the phrase of Coriolanus, by Shakespeare: “I’d rather serve them my way than send them theirs.”
