Losing is no fun

As with many experiences, sports can provide terrific highs as well as terrific lows. Heartbreak losses in the ring can be devastating to one’s morale, never mind that recovery from injuries sustained is made that much tougher when the fight ends up in the loss column.

One can listen to all the jibber-jabber about being in the game for the sake of it, but there is no feeling like winning whether it’s an amateur bout, a chess game or acing a paper. What particularly stings is when the winner takes that extra moment to grind in one’s loss whether it’s trash talk in an interview or some snide comment in an email. Whatever it is — one can cry in one’s proverbial beer or get into gear for the next something head held high for having tried in the first place.

It’s the latter that feels the hardest — especially when plans have to be adjusted, strategies rethought and importantly, the inevitable shoulda’, coulda’, woulda’s have to be worked through.  I’d offer up Grandma’s advise again — about having a good cry, washing your face, and moving on — but sometimes that doesn’t quite reach the moment.  Sometimes the “screaming-mimi’s” need to take over with a good dose of the “it’s-not-fairs” before one can begin to approach anything resembling the acceptance that leads to moving on. And that’s where the heavy bag comes in handy — ’cause in those moments it’s really good to hit things as a way of working out feelings of anger, sorrow and plain old disappointment.  The point being to find you’re inner heavy bag, that space where you can release all the feelings you have without taking them out on others or expressing them negatively on yourself — and thereby find your way to getting where you need to go whether it’s sending your latest work onto another publisher, having your team scream “rematch”! or quietly working your way back into the gym to fix whatever technical flaws you found, say dropping your left when you counterpunch, that leaves you vulnerable to attack.

So have a good cry and get back at it ’cause deadlines have a way of reappearing before you know it!  Oh and remember what my old therapist Ralph used to say, “happiness is the best revenge.”