Winning and Losing.

I have put this happy face of a pansy on today because for a moment yesterday I felt very much like smiling. Happily, I realised that smiling was giving in to a sense of foolish pride about why I was smiling.

A winner says, "I'm good but not as good as I ought to be"; a loser says, "I'm not as bad as a lot of other people." I hope that I am in fact just that.

I was encouraged by a friend to enter one of my paintings into a competition for the production of some playing cards. I submitted one and they took another from my page on their website and counted it in also. I got an email saying that both had ended up very highly ranked among the 78,,000 votes cast. To allow 54 people to participate only one will be used. I smiled and then reminded myself that I could do better.

There is a true story about a basketball coach named Jim Valvano which makes my point, let me share it with you.

Suffering from terminal spinal cancer at the age of 47, former basketball coach Jim Valvano spoke with a reporter. 

He looked back on his life and told a story about himself as a 23-year-old coach of a small college team. "Why is winning so important to you?" the players asked Valvano.

"Because the final score defines you," he said, "You lose, ergo, you're a loser. You win, ergo, you're a winner."

"No," the players insisted. "Participation is what matters. Trying your best, regardless of whether you win or lose -- that's what defines you."

It took 24 more years of living. It took the coach bolting up from the mattress three or four times a night with his T-shirt soaked with sweat and his teeth rattling from the fever chill of chemotherapy and the terror of seeing himself die repeatedly in his dreams. It took all that for him to say,  "Those children were right. It's effort, not result. It's trying. God, what a great human being I could have been if I'd had this awareness back then." 

he was right. I participated and I got a lovely email telling me I was a winner. Does not make me a better person. I participated and others may get the pleasure of my work. Possibly a few years from now some child will be sitting in a motorhome playing a game of cards with his grandmother and say he likes my painting, who knows what?

I am going to say very little else about this for any interested I will keep you informed especially any card players. But let me end with this little thought.

A winner respects those who are superior to him/her and tries to learn from them. A loser resents those who are superior to him/her and tries to find chinks in their armour.

Have a happy day I hope my little pansy makes you smile it was painted from one of the ones in my front garden. I took a picture of it and concentrated on it and with one eye half closed made the rest out of focus. Sounds simple trust me it is not.