A losing win

I would be the last person to glamorise losing or to extol the virtues of a serial loser but over time I observed we’ve become a people who have an unhealthy fear of losing. In our quest to win at all cost, morality becomes an inconvenience which we hurriedly discard so not to ‘besest’ us.

This attitude is abundantly evident everywhere we look. Is it in politics, religion, sports, education. That’s perhaps why you will hear of Pastors faking miracles in order to boost church membership; or students involving themselves in sundry exam malpractices. Some trek down the bribery route while others in a more sordid display of depravity use their bodies to negotiate a more favourable result.

It sickens me to say that in some cases, parents who ought to set the moral standard are the ones who go ahead to offer pecuniary gifts to lecturers on their children’s behalf, thereby disdaining the warning of God, which says, “if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.”

It’s worthy to note how we all claim to believe in God, no matter our religion, but judging by behaviour, there aren’t many who appear to believe in what He says. Anyway, that’s another discussion entirely.

I’m reminded of someone of our household many years ago who seems to have believed God, however. And to give him credit, you certainly couldn’t accuse him of fearing defeat either. To crown it all, he appeared the epitome of integrity. Well, at least at “first glance.” There was a time when my mum was in the car with our house help at the time, Cletus. Now, Cletus took the concept of integrity to an entirely different level when he received the scolding of his life from mum.

A win which brings immeasurably more harm than benefit is an unmistakable loss. A supposed loss, however, which makes its mark by inspiring others is an honourable venture

While mum was busy venting her anger and frustration because Cletus who had been with us for three years now was none the wiser about how to perform a particular chore, Cletus ever so politely interjected while raising his hand in objection, “Sorry, no be three years ma, na four years.” Neither my mum nor the driver who nearly lost control of the steering wheel knew whether to laugh or to cry. How’s any rational being meant to respond to that? Not a word was said until they got home.

I remarked in an earlier article how our people are so aversed to finding themselves on the losing side in elections that they would prefer to vote for candidates they know very will only impoverish them the more by stealing the treasury dry, than do the rational thing by voting their conscience. All because they don’t want to “waste” their vote. With glee, difficult to comprehend, they celebrate when their candidates win.

By virtue of association, they deceive themselves they have won too. A more grotesque form of sadomasochism is nigh impossible to imagine. A win which brings immeasurably more harm than benefit is an unmistakable loss. A supposed loss, however, which makes its mark by inspiring others is an honourable venture. A loss which makes a dent in the status quo thereby igniting the flame of hope in others that a new dawn is indeed possible is nothing but a win in my book.