The Difference Between Winning and Losing

The difference between winning and losing is not whether you fall but whether you pick yourself back up.

It is not making a mistake, it is having the courage to admit your mistake, and learn from it.

The difference between winning and losing is not necessarily the amount of effort you put into something, but recognizing what you are putting your effort into. It is the willingness to objectively evaluate actions and recognize what you are getting for your actions. It is the strength to then choose whether you want to keep getting the same response or would rather have another.

Those who are successful are not afraid to look at themselves and see things that need to be corrected. For those who are not successful this is the greatest fear - to show their faults - and so they hide them under false bravado, tough-guy attitude. The only problem with this is that their faults are so deeply hidden that they can never be worked on and released.

There really is a huge difference between winning and losing, but all of it is choice. Everybody falls down, but who gets up? Everybody makes mistakes, but who turns those mistakes into points in their favor by learning from them?

Those who are successful recognize that life itself is an opportunity for improvement, while those who lose blithely blame everyone else for everything that goes wrong. Success writes the Autobiography in Five Parts, by their willingness for self-examination and improvement.

So, today when it comes to choosing what you will do - take heart, pick yourself up, dust yourself off and move towards winning with self-reflection and the willingness to change things until they work for you.

Blessings.
- Darshan

© 2009 Darshan F Jessop

Autobiography in Five Parts (From the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying)

I

I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk
I fall in.
I am lost … I am helpless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes me forever to find a way out.

II

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I am in the same place
but it isn’t my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

III

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in … it’s a habit.
my eyes are open
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

IV

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

V

I walk down another street.