Win or Sin?

                                                                         Win or Sin?

A cool breeze saturates my sweat into my pores, as the density rocks my head like a rocking chair. Hundreds of thousands of dim beady eyes let loose an electric field that dawns closer to my skull, scrutinizing my every twinge in movement. The soccer ball ahead of my foot cackles in my uncertainty, it’s black and white patches materializing in front of my eyes at every blink for the last fortnight. A burly hippopotamus  guards the thin barricade of netting where I must land the ball, his menacing glare unfazed and his position barbarous. As the grass sways around my feet like cheerleaders, and the suspense of not performing sends cardiac arrests in the direction of every soul, I inhale deeply, and recollect what would happen if this shot was suboptimal. With a poise of my knee, my foot twisted in dismay, and my manner unperturbed, I sent the ball flying, right into where I thought was an opening. And right into the arms of the goalkeeper. The world spun like a ballerina on drugs, and my mind was corrupted with the aftermath of failure. My short-spanned life flashes before my 11-year old eyes, as the truth of the moment cautiously seeps in. I had not won.

Everyone wants to win. From the moment we are popped into this world to the moment we are pulled out, there is always a surge of adrenaline, a flash of desire, a certain charm to the prospect of winning. Whether it is the reward one seeks to win from it, the superiority complex that arises from it, or the pure honor to have won at something, people want to be winners. But there are two sides of the equilibrium. Winners and losers. It is the aftermath, those who don’t win, the less desirable outcome that people tend to forget. And if everyone is a winner, then there can’t be people to balance the scale of life. Personally, there are times when I can be a sore loser. If I don’t win a gold medal at my taekwondo class, produce the highest results on a math test, or simply lose a race for something as petty as P.E, thoughts are submerged into my noggin informing me that I am not the best. To me, and to profuse amounts of people in the world, that is not adequate. 

But where did this insalubrious addiction to being the best originate from? As far as conflicts go, which this predicament surely is, this one is society’s to blame. Since the start of time, or rather, the start of recreational contention, people have been forced to compete. Tribes that split apart, two sides of a party, members of council’s that spark a disagreement, all compete to see who is better. The result decides the winner of that situation, and the winner always comes out on top. The tradition of winning and losing has always been passed down through generations of dissension, and continues to augment through the reenactment of it. 

So competition is, situationally appropriate, but blatantly overused. Thus, if humans were to step back from competition, the results would vary in negativity. I personally step back from the competition if the reason behind its inception is deemed pitiful by my standards, or if the winning/losing side faces too many consequences. I am more of a solo player, so creme de la creme is a title rarely shared by me. These are incorporated for things like swimming, taekwondo, etc., and in staying solitary, winning is more lucrative.