Where Have All the Losers Gone?

What ever happened to losers? I mean, literally, losers.  In games or competitions, there is always a winner and a loser - always.  And yet, somehow, there has been a new wave of trying-to-soften-the-blow parenting/coaching/teaching that has our kids (youth, young adults) thinking they can't lose.

We have done the same thing in many places in the school system - we teach children that they cannot fail.  And students, then, only learn what it is to succeed.  We pad life for them.  If they, by some crazy stretch of the imagination, do fail by someone's standards, it cannot be their fault.  The blame is always cast elsewhere.  We have been raising an entire generation of these "winners".

As a kid, I played a load of organized sports.  I played in leagues where, oh heaven forbid, they kept score and winning was celebrated.  However, when we lost, we also did something...we were taught how to be good sports.  We were taught how to lose well.  We were taught that there are other people in the world who were better at certain things than us at certain times.  We were humbled.  We were challenged.  We learned we have to work hard to win or to succeed.

And now, well, now I feel as though we are doing a major disservice to students.  We have taken the reality out of their life education.  So many students are sheltered from failing for so long, when they finally do they don't know how to react.  They are suddenly faced with this shock in their late teenage years that they have failed in something or lost at something and they haven't been taught how to fail well or lose well.  So what happens? 

Well, it's like this:  if you've never experienced something, your first encounter with it will probably be fairly weak.  It's the same with failing or losing.  The first time, you don't know what to do.  Reactions can be all over the place, and often not flattering.  We can overreact or simply shutdown.  When you have gone through your early life being sheltered from losing or failing - that portion of your growth is stunted.  You are inhibited from maturing.  You need to work out your losing muscle.

Romans 5:3-5 says:

³ We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. ⁴ And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. ⁵ And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.

 In fact, losing, failing, facing trials, the Bible tells us, points us back to God.  It is when we fail, we develop character and our hope of salvation is strengthened.  Even learning to lose in a sporting event can help us develop character, and it may be a stretch to say that that kind of losing will always point us back to God; but it is in all of the pieces of character strengthening that does.

I'm tired of hearing the expression "non-winners"; let's call a spade a spade.  They're losers. And that's okay.  Kids need to be taught it's okay to lose.  Not all the time, but sometimes.  Because what losing or failing means is that they need to work harder and that there is someone else who is better.  Both important things to learn.

What ends up happening with a generation who doesn't know how to lose?  We're seeing it right now.  Here are a few stellar things that happen to a generation of "winners": 

• They feel entitled for no apparent reason (no wait, the reason is apparent: we've taught them they always win - and if I always win I should deserve...whatever I want). 
• They bounce from job to job because instead of taking time to invest in something and work hard at it, to take time to fail and learn and then succeed, they move on to another job so that they don't have to experience that failure
• Character suffers: we lose the ability to act humbly with our elders, consider the wisdom of those who have experience before us, and "lose" in the reality of hard work (because often hard work feels like failure even when it is successful)
• We lose out on the need to rely more fervently on God.  If I win all the time, I'm awesome and why would I need God to help me in anything if I'm so awesome?

So, all this being said, I want kids to know that they can lose.  They, themselves, don't need to develop a "loser" mentality, but knowing you can lose, fail, face trials is humbling, it's healthy, and it helps us grow as people and closer to God.  I will teach my kids, my youth, my students that people win and people lose. WE must work hard to win, and take failures well as we develop our character.