What is the shame in falling, if one knows how to rise again?
When it comes to raising children, the basic, most important and truly fundamental principle is to teach them - how to lose.
If they never lose, how will they ever understand that they were actually part of a game? They must be taught that a one-sided thinking is incomplete. A complete understanding always requires both sides: sometimes you lose (or learn) and sometimes you win.
When you win, you step into the next game with greater pride, and that very pride increases the chances of losing next time. When you lose, you indirectly learn something, because loss itself is an experience. I once broke my knee ligament, and only then did I realize that all those years had passed without me ever knowing what it feels like with a broken knee. And then I experienced the pleasure of it healing. These are the kinds of experiences our children must go through in life. Like, I am not saying they should get their body parts broken, but they should be taught the concept of pain and pleasure.
But the real question is, where will children learn how to lose?
From physical sports? Or from virtual and video games? You cannot deny any of these two.
These days, many articles state that children no longer play in the streets. Society has fragmented. Earlier, families would sit together in one place, watching television. Tastes on the tables were shared. There was a natural system of checks and balances - someone would say, “Why are you watching such nonsense? Put on something better.” Today, everyone is busy with their own phone. There is no longer a common room.
The beauty of games like hockey, cricket and football is that you cannot play them alone. You must go out among people. You have to knock on doors or modern day DM, call others, build consensus, form teams. You must tolerate the poor performance of others. And these are precisely the steps that lead you toward loss.
You may have played excellently, but your teammates did not and you must accept a defeat in which others played a bigger role than you. You worked hard, yet still lost. What a powerful life lesson, it beholds, no matter how well you perform, sometimes defeat is written in destiny. Accept it. Rise again.
Do not complain to fate. Instead, become strong enough to challenge it and try again.
Another beautiful aspect of physical sports is that when you lose, there is no immediate restart button. Your body is exhausted. After a 90-minut football match or 60 minutes of hockey, you are drained. Even if you want to play again, you simply cannot.
This teaches two crucial things: loss and time.
In video games, children can play for hours straight. Restart, restart, restart. Because the body is not tired, only the mind is occupied. The body never feels the loss. But to truly absorb loss, one needs endurance and the ability to let loss sink in. Loss comes to train us; to give us experience; to repair something broken within us.
We often say that if something breaks and you glue it back together, it becomes stronger and heavier than before - the glue adds value. When hearts break, their value increases. When hearts break, light enters. When we lose, we gain new experiences.
Another key difference is in street games, when you lose, you lose in front of others. In virtual games, you hide behind a screen, a fake name, an icon. Your identity remains protected. Maybe a few friends know it is you, but mostly you remain concealed.
In real games, when you lose a cricket match, the opposing team cheers. You learn tolerance. You walk away smiling, head lowered, saying, “Not today maybe tomorrow”. You are so physically exhausted that you cannot start again immediately. You spend the whole night with the feeling of defeat, thinking how you will bowl differently tomorrow, how you will play better next time.
I play football daily, and I know this well.
In virtual games, there is always a restart button. And you remain hidden behind the screen. Team-building exists, but only virtually. You do not see your teammates. You do not have to go looking for them or call out to them. Now children play with headsets and microphones, but it is still not the same.
Teaching children how to lose is extremely important. Otherwise, a dangerous emptiness develops in their behavior. They grow arrogant in victory, and even a small defeat can shatter them completely.
If you learn how to lose properly, you do not panic while climbing heights. You may not conquer Everest, but you may conquer K2 (second biggest mountain). Before undertaking great journeys, one must be trained to accept even final defeat. Reaching the semifinals after many victories gives the soul a new breadth, a new courage, something our children desperately need.
This is one perspective. But my tutor offered me a very interesting counter perspective. I asked him, “Where should one learn to lose, from physical games or from video games?” He replied: “From video games”.
Of course, I asked why.
He said: “In street games, the players are predictable. We know their profiles. But in virtual games, we compete globally. We know nothing about our opponents. Along with loss, we learn unpredictability”.
In street games, you know who bowls how, who plays which position. But in virtual games, there is a shuffle. You never know which part of the world your opponent is coming from. Along with winning and losing, a new variable is added - unpredictability.
The essential point remains the same: we must learn how to lose.
Do not protect the heart too carefully, it is your mirror.
A broken mirror becomes more precious in the eyes of the mirror maker.
A soldier with a few scars is easier to trust.
A climber with burnt skin proves he has been to the heights.
Loss, hardship and resilience must be taught to children. So that when they enter the field, they do not step in drunk on victory; but, crowned with the dignity of being a player.
Because players win and players lose too.
............
Peace 🕊
