I have spent a half hour watching different Oscar speeches, mainly for those who have won Best Actor/Actress. I have my favorites, and I have ones where I feel that their gratitude is not as well portrayed. We are celebrating the winners here, and although anyone nominated is considered a winner… I almost think the speeches of those who don’t quiet get there would be just as, if not more interesting than those of the “best.”

What happens to the losers? We so seldom hear their story.

We each have our own personal definition of losing and winning.

Here are two definitions as found on Dictionary.com:

Win:

“-verb (used without object)

1. to finish first in a race, contest, or the like.

2. to succeed by striving or effort: He applied for a scholarship and won.

3. to gain the victory; overcome an adversary: The home team won.

-verb (used with object)

4. to succeed in reaching (a place, condition, etc.), esp. by great effort: They won the shore through a violent storm.

5. to get by effort, as through labor, competition, or conquest: He won his post after years of striving.”

Lose

“-verb (used with object)

1. to come to be without (something in one’s possession or care), through accident, theft, etc., so that there is little or no prospect of recovery: I’m sure I’ve merely misplaced my hat, not lost it.

2. to fail inadvertently to retain (something) in such a way that it cannot be immediately recovered: I just lost a dime under this sofa.

14. to use to no purpose; waste: to lose time in waiting.

-verb (used without object)

23. to suffer loss: to lose on a contract.

24. to suffer defeat or fail to win, as in a contest, race, or game: We played well, but we lost.

25. to depreciate in effectiveness or in some other essential quality: a classic that loses in translation.”

The lessons learned from those who have lost, and always lose can be just as valuable as those that have lost and eventually won. Why does a loser continue if he never wins? Or is the fact that he continues why he is not really a loser in the first place? I think the day you become a real loser, is the day you give up.  But does that even really make you a loser? Sometimes you have to know your limits, and other times you have to know how to push yourself to get where you want to be.  I guess I am just grappling with examining my own sense of wins and losses.

Quote:

For when the One Great Scorer comes

To write against your name,

He marks-not that you won or lost-

But how you played the game.

-Grantland Rice