You May Already Be A Winner

Winning is everything.

At least, that is the accepted axiom for life in the fast lane. The concept here being that if you aren't a winner, then by default, you are most assuredly a loser.

Most of us bristle at the notion of being a loser. It seems so 'high school' to consider ourselves on such shallow terms and classify everyone into one of two categories with a broad brush.

What really occurs is that people who are popular, noticed, part of the 'in crowd' and generally well accepted grow up enjoying the same rarefied air and light. That is until the realities of life crowd in around them.

I remember reading an article several years ago about one woman's journey back to the small midwestern town of her birth, childhood and youth. Being more 'bookish' than 'lookish', this gal had spent a great deal of her time defending her brains and intellect from all invaders, both foreign and domestic. Moving away from her small town, she bravely entered the college scene and delved into opportunity that she had only dreamed of during those nights back on the farm. She was accomplished academically and professionally. She had married well and brought children into the world who were not little hellions.

All of that screeched to a halt when she attended her 25th high school reunion.

Successes and failures are measured all too often by the microcosm of high school. We can be instantly transformed back into the awkward teen we once were by simply entering the halls of our Alma mater. Time has no meaning and attainment of job skills and life skills disappear under the harsh light of the popularity contest that has no end.

In her own eyes and estimation, none of these people would ever see her as anything more than a bookworm who was shy and retiring. Neither of those things had been true for more than 20 years, but by default she became both under the crushing weight of high school expectations.

As the reunion drew to a close, she was jolted back to her senses by her wonderful husband who reminded her that all she had done that night was to retreat from a memory of her former self that was no longer true and likely had never been truthful about her at all. She had, he skillfully shared with her, become a swan. It wasn't that she was ever an ugly duckling. Far from it, he assured her. The fact was, she was in a small pond which was inhabited by a gaggle of geese that were intent on making noise for the sake of noise and a migrating flock of ducks that were only looking for the best places to feed and move on. Because she was different by nature, her skills and talents didn't match those of the crowd that, for a time, filled the little pond.

It wasn't until l that moment on that reunion night that this woman realized just how right her husband truly was. He had, in a very clear way, demonstrated a truth that too many of us miss entirely.

Who we are is totally up to us and not to our circumstances, social strata or the ideas of another.
We have a world of opportunity and learning at our feet. The wealth of knowledge is available to us. And, she had grown beyond the boundaries of her small town to embrace the whole world in her heart and mind.

She mentally retraced the evening and realized that for far too many of those whom she attended classes with that life had never left the city limits of the small community in which she drew her first breath. They were happy and secure in the small town fame and success that hadn't required the leap of faith to leave town and grow under uncertain conditions.

This wasn't to say that they were somehow less, but rather, that she had become something more. Over the course of her life experience, she had become a winner in a way that had nothing to do with games and competitions with little envelopes and scratch off cards.

She had, in fact, become a winner at life. She had learned to define herself by her own barometer of successes and failures by living life as it came. Those who had once been people of influence or targets for her youthful admiration were now clearly seen as the flawed and imperfect people they had been all along. And knowing that made her realize the best way to becoming a winner is to just keep trying.

That was something that many of her friends had missed, just like she did. It wasn't about winning and losing. Because the truth is, during the course of our lifetime, there will be far more losing that winning going on. That is the nature of life and how we learn. Instead, it was all about getting up just one more time when there was no more strength to go on. It was about making one more attempt to do the job, even when the odds were stacked against her. Life was about living, not about looking back at what was or what might have been.

In the years that have passed in my own life since reading that article, I have come to realize that the business of becoming adults is hard work. There are days I would cheerfully surrender unconditionally and run back into the the halcyon days of my youth, until I remember that some of them weren't all that great either.

But, even knowing that things are not always perfect doesn't dampen my elan for the adventure that is life.

So, I look at the promised prizes on the label of the sweepstakes I have been offered. No, this one didn't come in the mail. Instead, this is that mental sweepstakes that we all have deep inside us. It doesn't require us to fill out the silly little forms or remember a complicated series of questions and answers.

All we have to do is pay the price to be all that we can dream. It won't come without effort, but it will most assuredly be worth it.

Who knows?

You may already be a winner, whether you realize it yet, or not.