The only thing that we know for certain about reality is that everything living must eventually die.
While that was a morbid opening line, hear me out.
Everything that we know about reality, about the universe, about existence, and about life in general is all calculated probability.
In other words, nothing is ever truly certain, except for the end.
This is why yin and yang are fundamental laws of the universe - you can't have dark without light, you cant have sun without rain, you can't have heat without cold, and you can't have wins without loss.
For every positive, there is an equal and opposite potential negative to everything that we perceive to be real.
As Newton's third law of motion states: for every action, there is an equal an opposite reaction.
Equal and opposite forces are always attracting each other at every minute, of every day.
When it comes to winning, is it imperative that we experience loss because it is through loss that one is able to find the strength to keep going.
Whether it is in sports, in business, or even in the gym, losing is just a part of the game and people that stick with something, understand that losing is part of what they signed up for.
We can use the gym as a frame of reference because many people out there today can relate to working out.
Let's say you are training to become a power lifter and you want to get big and strong so that you can lift heavier weights in competition.
All of the hours a power lifter spends in the gym preparing for his meet are often met with plenty of failures and losses.
Oftentimes, you will see a powerlifter attempt new PR's in his training sessions and end up failing, while in preparation for his powerlifting meet.
One thing that I admire about the sport of powerlifting is that you are training for a competition and are experiencing losses along the way before you even get to the competition.
If you fail dozens of PR's in your preparation and go to the meet and win, then you know that all of those failures compounded into a bigger win.
This is how life is with just about anything.
As humans, we have to experience loss in order for us to be able to appreciate winning.
Some losses are much harder to take than others, especially when it is something you care about deeply.
But what separates winners from losers is that winners will never give up in the face of adversity.
A true winner is never going to give up amidst a loss because he accepts that losing is just a part of the game.
While he may not like losing, he understands that it has to happen.
Some people go their entire lives and only experience a life of losing, and this is often associated with the victim mindset.
When people are easy to play the victim and experience loss after loss and feel like there is no way out, they will often never appreciate the wins - the few wins that they may have.
What is interesting about winning is that the more and the bigger someone wants to win in life, the more they are going to have to experience losing.
The feeling of losing can be heartbreaking and sometimes shatter what little confidence someone has left and leave them battered and broken unable to recover.
I have personally found that the only way to never let the feeling of losing destroy you is by accepting the fact that it is just a part of life.
Life only moves forward, whether you're winning or you're losing.
The only way we combat the shitty feeling of losing is by aiming to win so big that you know inside your own mind that losing is worth it because you know where you want to go.
There are always going to be undesired outcomes as they are just a part of life, however, how we choose to deal with the undesired outcome is how we are going to determine how it effects us long term.
In the short term, absolutely, it's going to suck and this is something that for some things, you truly can't prepare for.
But what I often remember is that the harder the loss is, the greater the lesson is, and the more potential strength to be gained.
I refer to it as potential strength because not everyone sees their losses as being opportunities.
A loss is an opportunity to grow and find a new a new hidden strength, or set you down a path of fulfillment once you figure out the lesson that needed to be learned.
When you take a loss, you take it, internalize it, think about and digest it, think about why this loss had to happen, and then start devising a plan to get you back in the game and to make sure you learn your lesson.
I find that there is lessons to all experiences in our lives, whether it is the jobs we have, the people we meet, the places we go - literally anything you can learn from.
If you operate within the world with grace and gratitude, and approach things with confidence and self-respect, you will begin to realize your strength and become an unstoppable force.