Why do we need to win?

Do you like winning?

Winning isn’t everything. It’s the only thing, or so we’ve heard. Why is there such a societal obsession with being number one? If both teams in a game, all athletes in a race, work hard, don’t they all deserve to win? Does God take sides? I’ve said before that the Good Lord keeps out of sports competitions, contrary to what American athletes and politicians have claimed.

Shame and Pride, a book by Dr. Donald Nathanson, a psychiatrist and executive director of the Silvan S. Tomkins Institute in Philadelphia, built on the long-term study of babies by Tomkins. Tomkins observed thousand of babies over many years beginning in the 1940’s, and discovered nine states of emotion that can be triggered by outside forces and memories. Shame was the most neglected.

Shame takes place when "desire outruns fulfillment," when we want something and don’t get it. There are physical responses, like the shoulders slumping and head drooping. These are signals of defeat.

"One of the major tasks of childhood is the formation of gender identity," Nathanson is quoted as saying, "the shift from saying ‘I’m a kid,’ to saying ‘I’m a boy,’ or ‘I’m a girl.’ I don’t think anyone gets over the shame of not being adequately identified with the proper gender."

Therefore, it is critical that we positively reinforce the proper attributes of our children as they grow up. Labeling and name-calling makes it very difficult for children to accept defeat when they grow up. They can over-compensate through extremes of behavior, as we often see in sports through coaches and highly competitive athletes. At times, they may not realize that they are still seeking validation and acknowledgment they did not receive as youngsters by beating up on the bodies and emotions of their players and opposing teams.

Studies in the United States point out that 90 percent of children quit organized sports by the age of fifteen. Most cannot handle the blows of losing to their self-esteem. Competition has not really been scientifically proven to be good for most people. And yet, we say it does. Why? Are we hoping somebody can do what we didn’t and overcome the system?

Educational philosopher Alfie Kohn wrote No Contest, The Case Against Competition. In it, he cites study after study that says competition hinders work, play, learning and the growth of creativity in people of all ages.

And the pain is visited upon both winners and losers. Losers become quitter because they become the doormat for winners to feel good, or so they think. Winners, meanwhile, are stressed by having to keep on winning to maintain their standing in the eyes of their parents, peers and the public.

Yet, it seems to drive people crazy when you question the need to make other people fail in order for you to succeed. But modern society is built on shame. Without it, there would be revolution. Too much of it, and you would have mass suicide. It somehow keeps the balance that has become comfortable, with a few dominating the rest.

This is very common in nature. The dominant ‘alpha’ male not only gets to lead the pack in many species, but even gets to have sex with all the females. Now, if the other males in the group had stronger self-esteem and weren’t shamed by defeat in battle with the alpha male, do you think this situation would prevail? Hardly.

The World Health Organization indicates that people’s moods are the number one cause of impairment of their activity. In fact, the WHO estimates that $53 billion is lost to the US in terms of worker absenteeism and lost productivity. And that is a result of shameful experiences in life. It can be something as trivial as your favorite team losing the night before, because you hinged your aspirations on them, and don’t have the emotional fortitude to detach your experience from theirs.

"The real alternative to being number one is not being number two, but being able to dispense with these pathological altogether," Kohn says. "If people accepted the research on the destructiveness of competition, you wouldn’t see all these books teaching how to compete more effectively."

The key is to get what you can out of the experience. Everything is learning. Topping yourself is more lasting than trying to beat someone else. If you expand on your abilities, and improve upon your skills, then your self-esteem will be intact, because you always come away with something you didn’t have before. And you don’t need anyone to pound on you for that.

Only quitters never win, because they’re not even in the game to better themselves.