What It Takes

Originally I put this up as my first ever entry on 7.12.2004. Today is as good as ever to revisit this, there is always something in it that anyone can relate to.


As much as I would love to take credit for this work, it is not mine. Rather, I found it one day and I've kept it bookmarked so I may read it when I feel like, well, shit. Enjoy....

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Each human being is born as something new, something that never existed before. He is born with what he needs to win at life. Each person in his own way can see, hear, touch, taste, and think for himself. Each has his own unique potentials-his capabilities and limitations. Each can be significant, thinking, aware, and creatively productive person in his own right-a winner.

The words "winner" and "loser" have many meanings. When we refer to a person as a winner, we do not mean one who beats the other guy by winning over him and making him lose. To us, a winner is one who responds authentically by being credible, trustworthy, responsive, and genuine both as an individual and as a member of society. A loser is one who fails to respond authentically. Martin Buber expresses this idea as he retells an old story of a rabbi who on his death bed sees himself as a loser. The rabbi laments that, in the world to come, he will not be asked why he wasn't Moses; he will be asked why he wasn't himself.

Few people are one hundred percent winners or one hundred percent losers. It's a matter of degree. However, once a person is on the road to being a winner, his chances are greater for becoming even more so. This book is intended to facilitate the journey.

WINNERS

Winners have different potentials. Achievement is not the most important thing. Authenticity is. The authentic person experiences the reality of himself by knowing himself, being himself, and becoming a credible, responsive person. He actualizes his own unprecendented uniqueness and appreciates the uniqueness of others.

He does not dedicate his life to a concept of what he imagines he should be, rather he is himself and as such he does not use his energy putting on a performance, maintaining pretence, and manipulating others into his games. A winner can reveal himself instead of projecting images that please, provoke, or entice others. He is aware that there is a difference between being loving and able and acting loving, between being stupid and acting stupid, between being knowledgeable and acting knowledgeable. He does not need to hide behind a mask. He throws off unrealistic self-images of inferiority or superiority. Autonomy does not frighten a winner.

Everyone has moments of autonomy, if only fleeting. However, a winner is about to sustain his autonomy over ever-increasing periods of time. He may lose ground occasionally. He may even fail. Yet, in spite of setbacks a winner maintains a basic faith in himself.

A winner is not afraid to do his own thinking and to use his own knowledge. He can separate facts from opinion and doesn't pretend to have all the answers. He listens to others, evaluates what they say, but comes to his own conclusions. While he can admire and respect other people, he is not totally defined, demolished, bound or awed by them.

A winner does not play "helpless" nor does he play the blaming game. Instead he assumes responsibility for his own life. He does not give others a false authority over him. He's his own boss and knows it.

A winner's timing is right. He responds appropriately to the situation. His response is appropriate when it is related to the message sent and preserves the significance, worth, well-being, and dignity of the people involved. He knows that for everything there is a season and for every activity a time.

A time to be aggressive and a time to be passive,
A time to be together and a time to be alone,

A time to fight and a time to love,

A time to work and a time to play,

A time to cry and a time to laugh,

A time to confront and a time to withdraw,

A time to speak and a time to be silent,

A time to hurry and a time to wait.

To a winner time is precious. He doesn't kill it. He lives it here and now. Living in the now does not mean that he foolishly ignores his own past history or fails to prepare for his future. Rather, he knows his past, is aware and alive in the present, and looks forward to the future.

A winner learns how to know his feelings and his limitations and is not afraid of them. He is not stopped by his own contradictions and ambivalences. He knows when he is angry and can listen when others are angry with him. He can give and receive affection. He is able to love and be loved.

A winner can be spontaneous. He does not have to respond in predetermined, rigid ways. He can change his plans when the situation calls for it. A winner has a zest of life. He enjoys work, play, food, other people, sex, and the world of nature. He enjoys his own accomplishments. Without envy he enjoys the accomplishments of others.

Although a winner can freely enjoy himself, he can also postpone enjoyment. He can discipline himself in the present to enhance his enjoyment in the future. He is not afraid to go after what he wants but does so in appropriate ways. He does not get his security by controlling others. He does not set himself up to lose.

A winner cares about the world and its peoples. He is not isolated from the general problems of society. He is concerned, compassionate, and committed to improving the quality of life. Even in the face of national and international adversity, he does not see himself as totally powerless. He does what he can to make the world a better place.

LOSERS

Although people are born to win, they are also born helpless and totally dependent on their environment. Winners successfully make the transition from total helplessness to independence, and then to interdependence. Losers do not. Somewhere along the line they begin to avoid becoming self-responsible.

As we have noted, few people are total winners or losers. Most of them are winners in some areas of their lives and losers in others. Their winning or losing is influenced by what happens to them in childhood.

A lack of response to dependency needs, poor nutrition, brutality, unhappy relationships, disease, continuing disappointments, inadequate physical care, and traumatic experiences that contribute to making people losers. Such experiences interrupt, deter, or prevent the normal progress toward autonomy and self-actualization. To cope with negative experiences a child learns to manipulate himself and others. These manipulative techniques are hard to give up later in life and often become set patters. A winner works to shed them. A loser hangs on to them.

Some losers speak of themselves as successful but anxious, successful but trapped, or successful but unhappy. Others speak of themselves as totally beaten, without purpose, unable to move, half dead, or bored to death. A loser may not recognize that, for the most part, he has been building his own cage and digging his own grave, and is a bore to himself.

A loser seldom lives in the present. He destroys the present by occupying his mind with past memories or future expectations.

When the loser lives in his past, he dwells on the good old days or on his past misfortunes. Nostalgically, he either clings to the way things "used to be" or bemoans his bad luck. He feels sorry for himself and shifts the responsibility for his unsatisfactory life onto others. Blaming others and excusing himself are often part of his games. A loser who lives in the past may lament if only:

If only I had married some one else…

If only I had a different job…

If only I had finished school…

If only I had been handsome (beautiful)…

If only my spouse had stopped drinking…

If only I had been born rich…

If only I had better parents…

When a person lives in the future he may dream of some miracle after which he can "live happily ever after." Rather than pursuing his own life, he waits-waits for the magical rescue. How wonderful life will be when:

When school is over…

When Prince Charming or the ideal woman finally comes…

When the kids grow up…

When that new job opens…

When the boss dies…

When my ship comes in…

In contrast to those who live with the delusion of a magical rescue, some losers live constantly under the dread of future catastrophe. They conjure up expectations of what if:

What if I lose my job…

What if I lose my mind…

What if something falls on me…

What if I break my leg…

What if they don't like me…

What if I make a mistake…

By continually focusing on the future, a person experiences anxiety in the present. He is anxious over what he anticipates-either real or imagined-tests, bill paying, a love affair, crisis, illness, retirement, the weather, and so forth. A person overly involved with imaginings lets the actual possibilities of the moment pass him by. He occupies his mind with material that is irrelevant to the current situation. His anxiety tunes out current reality. Consequently, he is unable to see for himself, hear for himself, feel for himself, or taste, touch, or think for himself.

Unable to bring the full potential of his senses into the immediate situation, a loser's perceptions are incorrect or incomplete. He sees himself and others through a prismlike distortion. His ability to deal effectively with the real world is hampered.

A loser spends much of his time play-acting. He pretends, manipulates, and perpetuates old roles from childhood. He invests his energy in maintaining his masks, often projecting a phony front. Karen Horney writes, "The fostering of the phony self is always at the expense of the real self, the latter being treated with disdain, and best like a poor relative." To the play-acting loser, his performance is often more important than his reality.

A loser represses his capacity to express spontaneously and appropriately his full range of possible behavior. He may be unaware of other options for his life if the path he chooses goes nowhere. He is afraid to try new things. He maintains his own status quo. He is a repeater. He repeats not only his own mistakes; he often repeats those of his family and culture.

A loser has difficulty giving and receiving affection. He does not enter into intimate, honest, direct relationships with others. Instead, he tries to manipulate them into living up to his expectations and channels his energies into living up to their expectations.

When a person is being a loser, he is not using his intellect appropriately. He is misusing it by rationalizing and intellectualizing. When rationalizing, he gives excuses to make his actions seem plausible. When intellectualizing, he tries to snow others with his verbiage. Consequently, much of his potential remains dormant, unrealized, and unrecognized. Like the frog-prince in the fairy tale, he is spellbound and lives life being something he isn't meant to be.

Born to Win, by Muriel James and Dorothy Jongeward
Published by Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1971.

still top on that search

weird how this blog isn't really touched, yet I post ONE entry and all of a sudden I am #1 for my surname.


eat a IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIID .