The quiet winnersAll through life, we experience a series of losses, whether monetary, physical, mental or personal. Most of us also go through periods in our life when our personal fortunes may be low, when we experience humiliation and defeat. Are we to treat these losses as final and as proof that we are losers and not winners? I believe not. Seen from another perspective, many of these losses are part of our maturation process. They help us to grow and to see ourselves and others in a true light.Some people seem to be on a perennial path of success. However, such people are rare. There would suddenly be moments when life would hit them in the chin and the success stories turn to failure. Others seem to be doomed to failure from the start. But they struggle and they conquer. Maybe they remain just ordinary people with nothing to distinguish them from the rest. But they get imbued with an inner strength, which enables them to face the ups and downs of life.Should we treat people who are famous and celebrities alone as successes? Or should we not rather treat those who lead a quiet, hidden life, who live heroically from day to day, meeting the challenges of life as successes. No one sings their praises. They live and die unsung. But are they not really successful, because they have lived their lives fully and well?There are many people who have been cut off from the possibility of living normal lives, afflicted with illnesses for which there is no cure. We all see around us the handicapped, the physically and mentally retarded, who would seem to be losers in life. In actual fact, it is many of these people whom the world disregards and who live heroically, overcoming their handicaps, who are the real winners in life.Others live for ideals, like our soldiers, fighting valiantly to protect the country's borders. They may meet with an early death and their families may be ravaged by grief. But though their sacrifice for the country may soon be forgotten and their names consigned to the list of the anonymous who have served the country, their sacrifice does not go unrewarded, because they have lived for their ideals.There may be others who are crushed by the weight of circumstances. Their tolerance limits may be stretched to capacity. They may experience nothing but humiliation and defeat at their workplaces. Long hard hours of work may go unrewarded and unrecognised. Is it only external, visible recognition that makes them winners? Rather is it not that the fact that they have served their employers with dedication and loyalty that makes them the real winners?When the achievements and attainments that punctuate our life are summed up, in the final analysis what is it that really counts? Surely not the number of times our names have figured in newspaper columns, the number of times we have been hosted, received praise and won awards. What would really count is how much we have loved, how much we have served, how we have reached out to others, and how well we have lived the life that has been graced to us.Living is not about losing. Only those who hotly pursue outward manifestations of glory and then experience deflation when they fall from their pedestals of glory are those who, in a sense, lose the battle. The real losers are those who have missed out the hidden, spiritual pathways in life and who have concentrated on only worldly gain and glory.For the rest, those who continue in their quiet way - with maybe an ordinary life, an ordinary job, an ordinary family and nothing to set them apart from others - live quietly successful lives. They learn to give and to take, to listen to life's calling, to win and to lose, to hold on and to let go. They are the real winners.
