A good education and family give us keys to know how to succeed or to fit defeat well. It is useful to recall that cartoon in The New Yorker in which a Roman saw a schoolmaster handing out medals to a long line of children and, as he watched, said to himself: “This is the beginning of the decline of Rome : everyone has a trophy”.
An interesting part of life is learning how to win. Not everyone knows about it. The best thing would be to reach the triumph and enjoy it with greatness, elegance and discretion. Even, if they make me say it, with humility. But it is essential that it is sincere and that, please, this is not the only virtue that has no other.
Let’s go to defeat: when it’s time to lose. When it comes to us – because it always comes -, we need to know how to do it with integrity, without exaggeration, without too much fuss. To lick our wounds – which, by the way, also say a lot and many times rightly who we are – without focus or megaphone. A little discretion never hurts. Excess decibels almost always.
Every day we are tested: it is part of life. Whether or not we get top marks in an exam; if we succeed in being promoted in a workplace; if we come out on top as a result of an election, there will always be winners and losers.
It’s hard to accept the success of someone you don’t agree with and even more so if you think they didn’t achieve it according to your values; nothing happens: sometimes you know you’re on the right side by looking at what’s in front of you, even if you don’t have to get to the confrontation. Marcus Aurelius reminded us that “the best way to defend yourself against it is not to resemble it”. This does not mean that we do not have to listen to them, because understanding the other is essential. Peace is only made with rivals. Mandela agreed with De Klerk.
To give us shelter in life, we should be well-shod from head to toe. When you’re comfortable in your own skin, nothing happens if it’s not earned. I can’t think of anything more forceful than the phrase of Shakespeare’s Coriolà: “I prefer to serve them in my way, than to command them in theirs”.
