Lance Armstrong's addiction to winning the worst offence
Stephen Monick says an inability to accept defeat makes us losers in life, as Lance Armstrong proved, because it denies us the opportunity for growth
I have won many rowing races in my life. And I have lost many races. My name is on the same trophy as some of the rowing greats of my generation. And I have also lost to a ham sandwich. A team I once raced had only seven men to fill an eight-man boat. So, as a joke, the team put a ham sandwich in the empty seat, which corresponded to mine. And we still lost.
It hurt losing to a ham sandwich. I bet Lance Armstrong never hurt that bad. I know he didn't. If he had, he'd be a different person.
One can get philosophical about losing. According to the existentialists, the very nature of the human condition includes loss, alienation, meaninglessness, angst and despair. Every person must struggle with this. At the risk of condensing 150 years of philosophical thought, the only real solution is to "deal with it".
Just the other day, I had the "deal with it" pep talk with my five-year-old son. Despondent at tackling his own teammate in a soccer game, life had lost meaning.
So I told him the great comeback story of Brad Lewis and the 1984 Olympics (and, yes, it's a rowing story). Lewis was completely down and out. He had lost the single scull trials and was kicked off the team. So he collected his thoughts, called a buddy and started training together in the double sculls. They went on not only to qualify for the Olympics, but to win the gold medal.
I showed my son a picture of Lewis in his boat, head between his shoulders, destitute in defeat. "You can be like this guy. He was completely down in the dumps, and he pulled himself back up to be the best in the world!" Or you can forget it and take up the violin. Up to you.