Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Winning or Losing!

Have had more than a few discussions with pals on a lazy evening, during "night outs" and during drink sessions on this : which is better - winning or losing?
Ofcourse, everyone likes to win. After these discussions, i firmly beleive that winning a lot takes away the real "understanding" of people and life. But, losing has resurrected many many lives. That doesn't mean, we lose all our lives. If someone is genuinely trying hard, losing teaches more lessons than winning.
Andre Agassi - His marriage failed and his ranking dropped below 100. He returned to win the crown and marry the princess Steffi. I heard from a tennis player pal (ATP ranked) that during this phase Agassi used to run early mornings/late nights up a hill and run on and on till he hit complete exhaustion and puke.
Steven Waugh - Enough and more said in his book " Out of my Comfort Zone". I have a copy and i read some pages atleast once every week :). He isn't a genuius by any standard of batting, except his own - the "fighting" style.
Rahul Dravid - Dropped early in his career in the one day squad. He fought back in, fought all his critics. And he is an ordinary human being and the best guy to lead the Indian cricket team, at the moment.
Sachin - The reason why he failed as a captain - The man won all his life. He could never understand the mortals. He is a genius and he gives some 150% all the time. He can never understand failure and its difficult for him to get a person out of a slump ( Dravid is a genius here). But there is hope. He has had a bit of tough time oflate and there is hope that Sachin can learn captaincy by the recent "failures". Think if he captains the team now, he can get the team to perform much better than his earlier stint.
Lance Armstrong - Am a big big big fan of his. Lived a "easy" life till cancer. Cancer and possibility of death woke him up. 6 tour de France after cancer - that says it all.
What do you think?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good one!!Well when u keep winning and get whatever u always wanted,losing at times teaches u a lot as u said.Would just like to add that we all got to enjoy that lose/loss for a change.But this is very difficult.Easy said than done though ;-)

Karthikeyan (KK) said...

Archu - True. Enjoy the loss - i wonder if someone really "enjoy's" the loss, at that instant. But in hindsight, the "joy" of the loss will prove itself!! The distance from "the moment of loss" to "appreciation of the loss" is quite a tough one to trek through!

Yagnyesh said...

Bud - make that 7 wins for Armstrong . The point that you make about failure teaching a person more is very true.