The Antics of Winning and Losing.
The most broadcasted activities over the last week have been those of winners and losers in the political scenes. In Kenya, politics is a caricature of condemnation. If you “lose,” then your eminence and class is stripped and immediately you become an island. As a matter of fact, it is upon you to align yourself uniquely to find relevance. Otherwise you are a loser for as long as you are not in power.
My take is different though in relation to winning and losing. That we ought to change our approach towards what we term as a win or lose. In politics, the winner always takes the cream and the game ends there. There is a striking thing in athletics on the other hand; can we say they have winners and losers too? Interestingly not. When you come in position one, you receive a gold medal. The second and third place athletes get silver and bronze medals respectively. The rest of the guys get motivation and the beauty that comes with participating in such international games. They start practicing for the second, third and subsequent games. This simply means that all are winners.
Losers in my world are those people who don’t try anything and are the first one to condemn those who have tried. In my world too, in as much as you tried, you are a winner. It takes guts to try. In politics, we ought to just understand that only one person can occupy one seat of power to rule within a specified period of time. Making sure we appreciate that all are winners never the less can go a long way in transforming the post results impact and stress.
In a competition, there is no architectural design to winning or losing unless there is a sure predetermined systems that can lead to a sure outcome; that of winning. Even in such circumstances there is always room of disappointments too.
I remember cases when I was in primary school, a classmate cried seriously and got agitated because he had not come in first place and since he used to be in position one, coming second meant losing profusely. I wish he knew what it meant to some of us to move from position thirty to twenty nine.
Fast forward, in high school, winning took a different route. Number ones got treated as kings and were given all the gifts which meant that even if you came in second with one point less, you had to swim in the shadow that surrounded the position one glamour.
Don’t miss a crucial point in the last two examples I gave. That you win and get awarded if you came in the first position. If you came in at second place and third places, you also got awarded but not as sound as the first position. In really life and politics, it doesn’t matter if you came second, you get nothing and your story is done. Perhaps it is high time we started seeing how to put into good use the great leaders that come in second and third places. That is what it means to work together and have an inclusive government.
In the play An Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen, the majority rule sometimes could be wrong. That is why the minority that could be right need to be taken care of so that things neutralize out. The only important thing though needs to be respect to the will of the people. Appreciating the majority winners and also the minority losers.
Perhaps to win exclusively as a nation and citizenry, we need to get real leaders and servants of the people by not making the business of being politicians too “lucrative” because often it attracts the wrong type of people.
May be we could say that the political arena has a standardized way of doing things which unstandardized minds cannot in the best way perform well.
Diane Ravitch once remarked, “Sometimes, the most brilliant and intelligent minds do not shine in tests because they do not have standardized minds.” Diane could have so much studied the antics of winning and losing before making this statement since it perfectly provides alternatives to the parties that “lose.”
Point blank, if you don’t win the political seat you ran for or any cause you had undertaken, it is high time you switched gears and went to unstandardized tests which perhaps can be business or other avenues and I am sure you will shine there.
In conclusion, Thomas Edision said, “I have not failed. I have found a thousand ways that don’t work,” Well, always see the positive in a loss and always know that in as much as you tried, you won and you are a hero to me.
Copyright@2017
