Win-Win

Most people effectively live their lives and make their choices looking for a win-win situation. They manage to look for creative solutions where both parties can find benefits from the situation. This seems to be the paradigm shift that most self-help gurus and celebrity psychologists are advocating. In a dog-eat-dog world, it can actually be a breath of fresh air to find people like this. But I guess the question I want to ask is: What happens if a win-win situation doesn't exist?
What happens when the choice before us is to make dust or to eat dust or to use the law of the jungle--to kill or be killed? What happens when in order for one to win, one has to lose? What then? When we have exhausted all the avenues available to us and find that there can be no amicable settlement, will we then give ourselves permission to stay afloat at the cost of others, to tout the phrase which will excuse our actions- survival of the fittest? Will we then nonchalantly quip that this is precisely what separates the boys from the men, the mice from the men? How fast will we switch the win-win horse to the win-lose horse in the middle of the race?
Nobody likes to be called a loser. Nobody wants to be that person who gets left behind in a trail of dust because he wasn't quick enough or smart enough or assertive enough. Even Cinderella, the quintessential loser, got to have the last laugh. Even she got to win her prince at the very end. When faced with the decision to reconcile with her stepsisters and possibly be rejected again, or live happily ever after with the prince without looking back-Cinderella took the happily-ever-after-choice and left her past in the dust. And we all love her for it.
But what happens to the people who choose otherwise? What happens to people who willingly take the losing end? What happens when after weighing all the odds and consequences, people take the choice that makes them lose? I'm not talking about psychologically imbalanced people who have very low self-esteem or who think they are no good. I'm talking about a person who has a good grasp of self-confidence and who believes that as a human being deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. What if a person like this looks at a situation and finds that, faced with the outcome of being advantaged or disadvantaged, decides to be disadvantaged? Most people would call him a loser, I suppose.
That's probably because most people have forgotten what sacrifice is. We all live in a society that has lost our reverence for martyrdom. We are quick to judge people as naïve or stupid. We are quick to call them doormats or victims and we secretly wish that they would all go to a psychiatrist to get themselves medicated. Because after all, only a fool allows himself to be 'conned' out of what he deserves.
But in my relatively short time in this dog-eat-dog world, I have found that just because a lot of people think the same way, doesn't always mean that they're right. As a child, I have always been taught to fight for my rights and to allow no one to step over me. But strangely enough, I have also been taught that given the choice between being first and being last, I should be last. I was taught to assert myself and demand what is due me. And at the same time, I was told to give in, to give up, to surrender. And so I have struggled with my choices and my decisions, looking to find my balance on this very fine line, hoping that at some point that 'common ground' will come to meet my outstretched foot.
Only to find, that that common ground often times does not exist. No, unfortunately, win-win situations only exist in hypothetical-vacuum-like fishbowls where no one ever gets hurt. Those of us on the outside must determine whether we are winners or losers at every moment, knowing that winners are not always the better men and losers can sometimes be the most honorable.