Participation ribbon, not keeping score, everybody wins? Sounds like everybody loses to me. Why is it so bad to lose, isn't it a part of life? I think this is a valuable lesson to teach children. Some people many not agree with my parenting and ways but when I play a game with my little ones and I am able to win, I do. They have to learn to lose with grace and learn from it. I would much rather have my child at four pitch a fit to me about losing, than have them pitch a fit about not getting a job or promotion in their twenties.
There is nothing wrong with losing, it is what you do about it that separates the champions. Battle lost not the war and all that. What if Michael Jordan gave up and said "Oh I lost," after not making the high school basketball team? It's how he handled that loss that made him so great.
Yes, we are all born with certain strengths and weaknesses, but just having a natural strength in a certain area alone is not going to make you great. You have to practice, you have to work, and then you have to lose. Why did you lose, why did you not get the promotion? What can you change and what can you not? Focus on what you can change and what you can improve on.
Not every pot I make is a winner. It takes a lot of losses to get wheel throwing down. Some things I saw as a victory ten years ago are no longer good enough. These losses force me to change what I am doing, they force me to improve. Pots crack during firing, this makes me reevaluate and change how I make them, or even change the design all together. Glaze can run off the bottom ruining the entire piece which forces me to change how I apply the glaze or replace it with an entirely new glaze. Each one of these setbacks, these losses, changes my work and moves it in a new direction. I have learned to not count my pots until they are completed.
Anytime there is a winner there has to be a loser it's how the world works. Embrace your losses and learn from them, it's the only way to truly grow and improve.
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Lindsay Klix
Off Your Rocker Pottery
How true! I find your blogs inspiring.