On Losing
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“Just because I’m losing, doesn’t mean I’m lost.”
- Coldplay
I have countless experiences of losing. I deeply thank basketball for that. In the spirit of competition, not many people talk to you about losing. Its actually taboo to develop coping skills for losing because the lore in sports is that losing can be incestuous. You are warned of losing. Any habits that are indicative of it are to be purged away. You aren't prepared to do what it takes in preparation of coming up short. You’re not instructed to develop habits that are indicative of one who can’t claim victory. Unfortunately, losing is the residue of competition. We rarely remember losers, but somehow all of us remember when we have lost. We glorify winners as if they have done something exemplary that should be replicated and patterned after. We read their success literature and listen to their speeches. And rightly so. However, without fail, we see how impactful losing has actually been to any form of success.
If I’ve learned anything about losing, its purely a result of the way in which we measure ourselves….ourselves. What I mean by that is that a loser is a loser because we've defined it as such. In Brazil, to win is called [ganhar] [to gain]. And a loss is oftenly referred to as [ganhar experiência] [to gain experience].
I have a bias towards losing because I firmly believe my greatest moments in human development came in the face of a loss. I can remember losing my very last high school game of my career (a game we were not supposed to lose). I sat there, crying, wondering what I had done to the world to deserve this. In fact my very last professional game of my career I also lost. This was equally painful. But perhaps the most transformative loss I’ve ever had came in college. Sadly, it was the very last collegiate game of my career. I sat there (again crying) wondering what this would mean for me, my team and my relationship with this game I devoted so much time to. At that point in time I truly believed that losing was predestined - those who lost were deserving of it because it meant that they took one less repetition, gave in on sprints one less second and lifted one less pound in the weight room. I was dogmatic in believing that the win was earned in preparation and therefore, the game was a revelation of who had prepared the most. Only through preparation was one worthy of victory.
I cried louder this time, because I invested so much more than I ever had. I believed the opponent didn’t want this as much as I did. There was no possible way they watched more tape, took more shots, and shed more energy than us; than me! Therefore they weren’t deserving of the win. Something was not right in the universe. I couldn’t come to terms with this reality. Emotionally, I was spiraling out of control. Hysterical with tears. Grace finally came from my coach. He pulled me aside and said:
You have a lot of people watching you. My son included. Make sure you show them how to handle moments like this.
His statement concerned me because my relationship with basketball, up until that point, had been purely transactional. It was the first time I was aware of this. I thought about the game in personal terms, what it would do for me, how it would impact me, how I could benefit from it. But never did I consider what basketball meant as an emblem of humanity. What this specific loss taught me what that this whole time I had been duped. I wasn’t getting up early just to work on my shooting mechanics. I wasn't watching tape just to gain an advantage. I was never challenging myself just to become more of a leader. In fact, I was never just playing basketball. I was becoming someone through basketball. What my coach helped me do is reframe. I’m simply working on my character through these confined rules of ritual aggression that we use a round orange object to shoot, pass and dribble. After all the practices, hours in the gym, lifting sessions and games, my real acquisition wasn’t basketball skills, but rather dignity. Basketball isn’t some divine creation, it was created by a mortal to remind us all of our mortality. In that moment, through the guise of competition, I might feel as though I didn’t get what I believed I earned. What I actually needed to realize was that in every bout of competition I was merely a vessel. So I had to make a choice: was I contaminating this game through my ego? or was I in fact a beacon of virtue? Witnesses, like my coach’s son, will testify for or against me with that question. They will live out whatever they believed the game to be, through my individual actions. I need to be cognizant of that.
When others see me lose, it’s important they walk away realizing that the loss affected me but it I am not an effect of the loss.
What ended up happening was I dried my tears, and I hugged every teammate I had. I told the underclassmen to remember this feeling and make sure they kept our tradition of winning going. I put my clothes on and I went to my coaches son and rubbed his hair with a smile. The very next day, I went back in the gym. Never again, did I allow a loss to contribute to me losing my dignity.
***I dedicate this to John McCain, Kobe Bryant and Jerry Sloan. Three of the best [losers] I’ve ever seen.***