Robbing Yourself of Victory

Have you ever found yourself playing a game with a group of friends, and early on you find yourself on the losing side? You start to grumble and feel like this game is dumb or maybe it just isn’t fair. You just feel let down or bummed and you can’t wait for the game to be over so you can never play it again.

You make it known to everyone that you aren’t happy.

Then, you start winning.

Every turn you recover ground, catching up and then surpassing your enemies friends. When the final turn comes around, you are the victor! You did it! You won!

But the win feels hollow now. You spent the entire first half of the game being snarky about losing, about the rules, about the way no one else suffered like you did…

You won… but you still lost.

For me, that happened a lot growing up. If I’m honest? It still happens sometimes as an adult. In games like Risk, or Catan, Super Smash Brothers, and especially in Mario Party or X-Wing.

Despite my struggles, I have come to appreciate the ride for what it is.

That means sometimes losing horribly against my friends. Sometimes I am just going to roll a “1” on my turn. Every. Single. Time.

It happens.

Getting upset early on prevents me from truly savoring a sudden turn of events in the game when I am in the lead and everyone is wondering where this underdog came from?!

But this mindset doesn’t just apply to games.

It can apply to storytelling, life, work, and just about anything else we do that spans great lengths of time.

It’s easy to get discouraged when things are rolling out, but if it doesn’t start the way you wanted, that doesn’t mean you need to prepare for it to end that way too. Don’t rob yourself of victory. Don’t set the stage to feel like you lost even when you do end up winning.

We’re all in this for the long haul. Stay positive!