There seems to be a virus which has been circulating North American cultures for close to sixteen years now. You can see evidence of it starting to reverberate through the business world and society in general, as the first generation which was exposed to this virus matures and becomes adults and/or the leaders of our countries. The virus, plain and simple, is the “Everybody wins! Nobody Loses!” mentality.
The Problem:
Once upon a time, it was theorized that bullies are bullies due to low self esteem and that victims are victims due to low self esteem (I’ll let that theory stand on its own for the purposes of this post). Further, it was noted that after losing at sports, a persons self esteem often takes an incremental dip, while winning at sports caused an incremental increase in self esteem. Therefore, it was thought that by providing a fun atmosphere for kids to play sports in, with no fear of losing, the negative feelings would be removed and replaced by the positive feelings of winning.
The Reality:
People are not stupid, in general. We understand inherently the concept between winning and losing. Watch any game kids make up to play on their own. There is always a winner and one or more losers. Look at a series of applicants for a job, again there is aleays a winner and at least one loser. The harsh reality of the world is that losing sucks, being on the short end of the stick sucks, but it is going to happen to all of us. Not a single person will go through life winning at everything. Therefore, does it not make sense at a young age to learn to deal with the disappoinent of defeat? Should we not develop coping strategies to help us with these disappointments?
I can understand completely, and support the teaching of basic skills for various sports, competitions, etc. bedore introducing the harsh realities of winning and losing. However, “everybody wins, isn’t that great?!” in any grade above three is ridiculous. We inherently know if we’ve won or lost. The everybody wins patronization just adds insult to the sting of defeat, and starts a dangerous road of entitlement. The thought process of “Well whether I win or lose I always win, so why bother busting my hump to get better. Everything is coming to me anyway.”
This sense of entitlement is creeping into the adult world now, slowly but surely. With these dangerous lessons having been learned early and often, it is increasingly hard to spot self motivated improvement or truly well adjusted individuals. The foundation of what helped North American society become one of the leaders in the world is being eroded. Not from external forces, but from imternal cries of “Won’t somebody please think of the children!” expecting the reality of the world to change to their delicate sensibilities.
I am now asking: Won’t somebody please, truly, think of the children, their world and their future? Before it’s too late, let us save them from our misguided attempts to help them. Let them fail, learn they can overcome failure and through that learn to survive, succeed and thrive.