Whether You Win Or Lose Quotes

It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game.

It does not matter whether you win or lose, what matters is whether I win or lose!

Oftentimes winning can become an addiction, whether good or bad, to the point where you would rather lose it all before you lose at all.

Love is a gamble and sometimes it hurts, but whether you win or lose being in love is a beautiful thing.

It's not whether you win or lose in life that's important but whether you play the game. Lose enough and eventually you will win. It's only a matter of time.

I’m going to tell you something once and then whether you die is strictly up to you," Westley said, lying pleasantly on the bed. "What I’m going to tell you is this: drop your sword, and if you do, then I will leave with this baggage here"—he glanced at Buttercup—"and you will be tied up but not fatally, and will be free to go about your business. And if you choose to fight, well, then, we will not both leave alive." You are only alive now because you said 'to the pain.' I want that phrase explained." My pleasure. To the pain means this: if we duel and you win, death for me. If we duel and I win, life for you. But life on my terms. The first thing you lose will be your feet. Below the ankle. You will have stumps available to use within six months. Then your hands, at the wrists. They heal somewhat quicker. Five months is a fair average. Next your nose. No smell of dawn for you. Followed by your tongue. Deeply cut away. Not even a stump left. And then your left eye—" And then my right eye, and then my ears, and shall we get on with it?" the Prince said. Wrong!" Westley’s voice rang across the room. "Your ears you keep, so that every shriek of every child shall be yours to cherish—every babe that weeps in fear at your approach, every woman that cries 'Dear God, what is that thing?' will reverberate forever with your perfect ears. That is what 'to the pain' means. It means that I leave you in anguish, in humiliation, in freakish misery until you can stand it no more; so there you have it, pig, there you know, you miserable vomitous mass, and I say this now, and live or die, it’s up to you: Drop your sword!" The sword crashed to the floor.

Krishna tells Arjuna in Gita whether you win or lose that is not important, what is important is that you perform your duty with right attitude.

What's really important isn't whether you can win fights. It's not losing against yourself.

Who ever said, ‘It’s not whether you win or lose that counts,’ probably lost.

If it's not whether you win or lose but how you play the game, why keep score?

There are days you wake up thinking you can juggle the world between your fingers, and other days you wake up feeling the air around you intoxicates you to a point where you can no longer leave the premises of your bed. The nights in between, you shuffle between being a warrior and a slave; wondering whether you want to lose yourself to win the world, or lose the world to win yourself.

I am often asked what keeps me going after all these years. I think it is the realization that there is no final struggle. Whether you win or lose, each struggle brings forth new contradictions, new and more challenging questions. As Alice Walker put it in one of my favorite poems: I must love the questions themselves as Rilke said like locked rooms full of treasures to which my blind and groping key does not yet fit.1

It’s loneliness. Even though I’m surrounded by loved ones who care about me and want only the best, it’s possible they try to help only because they feel the same thing—loneliness—and why, in a gesture of solidarity, you’ll find the phrase “I am useful, even if alone” carved in stone. Though the brain says all is well, the soul is lost, confused, doesn’t know why life is being unfair to it. But we still wake up in the morning and take care of our children, our husband, our lover, our boss, our employees, our students, those dozens of people who make an ordinary day come to life. And we often have a smile on our face and a word of encouragement, because no one can explain their loneliness to others, especially when we are always in good company. But this loneliness exists and eats away at the best parts of us because we must use all our energy to appear happy, even though we will never be able to deceive ourselves. But we insist, every morning, on showing only the rose that blooms, and keep the thorny stem that hurts us and makes us bleed hidden within. Even knowing that everyone, at some point, has felt completely and utterly alone, it is humiliating to say, “I’m lonely, I need company. I need to kill this monster that everyone thinks is as imaginary as a fairy-tale dragon, but isn’t.” But it isn’t. I wait for a pure and virtuous knight, in all his glory, to come defeat it and push it into the abyss for good, but that knight never comes. Yet we cannot lose hope. We start doing things we don’t usually do, daring to go beyond what is fair and necessary. The thorns inside us will grow larger and more overwhelming, yet we cannot give up halfway. Everyone is looking to see the final outcome, as though life were a huge game of chess. We pretend it doesn’t matter whether we win or lose, the important thing is to compete. We root for our true feelings to stay opaque and hidden, but then … … instead of looking for companionship, we isolate ourselves even more in order to lick our wounds in silence. Or we go out for dinner or lunch with people who have nothing to do with our lives and spend the whole time talking about things that are of no importance. We even manage to distract ourselves for a while with drink and celebration, but the dragon lives on until the people who are close to us see that something is wrong and begin to blame themselves for not making us happy. They ask what the problem is. We say that everything is fine, but it’s not … Everything is awful. Please, leave me alone, because I have no more tears to cry or heart left to suffer. All I have is insomnia, emptiness, and apathy, and, if you just ask yourselves, you’re feeling the same thing. But they insist that this is just a rough patch or depression because they are afraid to use the real and damning word: loneliness. Meanwhile, we continue to relentlessly pursue the only thing that would make us happy: the knight in shining armor who will slay the dragon, pick the rose, and clip the thorns. Many claim that life is unfair. Others are happy because they believe that this is exactly what we deserve: loneliness, unhappiness. Because we have everything and they don’t. But one day those who are blind begin to see. Those who are sad are comforted. Those who suffer are saved. The knight arrives to rescue us, and life is vindicated once again. Still, you have to lie and cheat, because this time the circumstances are different. Who hasn’t felt the urge to drop everything and go in search of their dream? A dream is always risky, for there is a price to pay. That price is death by stoning in some countries, and in others it could be social ostracism or indifference. But there is always a price to pay. You keep lying and people pretend they still believe, but secretly they are jealous, make comments behind your back, say you’re the very worst, most threatening thing there is. You are not an adulterous man, tolerated and often even admired, but an adulterous woman, one who is ...

Everything is possible, and yet nothing is. All is permitted, and yet again, nothing. No matter which way we go, it is no better than any other. It is all the same whether you achieve something or not, have faith or not, just as it is all the same whether you cry or remain silent. There is an explanation for everything, and yet there is none. Everything is both real and unreal, normal and absurd, splendid and insipid. There is nothing worth more than anything else, nor any idea better than any other. Why grow sad from one’s sadness and delight in one’s joy? What does it matter whether our tears come from pleasure or pain? Love your unhappiness and hate your happiness, mix everything up, scramble it all! Be a snowflake dancing in the air, a flower floating downstream! Have courage when you don’t need to, and be a coward when you must be brave! Who knows? You may still be a winner! And if you lose, does it really matter? Is there anything to win in this world? All gain is a loss, and all loss is a gain. Why always expect a definite stance, clear ideas, meaningful words? I feel as if I should spout fire in response to all the questions which were ever put, or not put, to me.

It’s not whether you win or lose. It’s how you play the game.

When you play Bobby, it is not a question of whether you win or lose. It is a question of whether you survive. —BORIS SPASSKY

There are a lot of people in this world who are afraid of caring or afraid of showing that they care, because it's uncool. It's uncool to have passion. It's so much easier to lose when you've shown everyone how much you don't care, whether you win or lose. It's much harder to lose when you show that you care. But you'll never win unless you also stand to lose.

Anticipation and dread aren’t opposites, just different versions of the same game. Both involve knowing that something is going to happen, but not knowing when. And whether you end up winning or losing, you at least get to reach a conclusion. There’s always some comfort in that.

Alternative Anthem. Put the kettle on Put the kettle on It is the British answer to Armageddon. Never mind taxes rise Never mind trains are late One thing you can be sure of and that’s the kettle, mate. It’s not whether you lose It’s not whether you win It’s whether or not you’ve plugged the kettle in. May the kettle ever hiss May the kettle ever steam It is the engine that drives our nation’s dream. Long live the kettle that rules over us May it be limescale free and may it never rust. Sing it on the beaches Sing it from the housetops The sun may set on empire but the kettle never stops.

What's really important... Isn't whether you can win fights. It's not losing... Against yourself.

Love us a gamble and sometimes it hurts, but whether you win or lose being in love is a beautiful thing

Whoever said, "It's not whether you win or lose that counts," probably lost.

It's not about winning or losing, really,” he’s saying. “It’s just the showing up every day. It’s stepping up to the plate and whiffing, and then doing it over and over again, whether you get a hit or not. It’s getting up every morning and failing and being disappointed and getting beat up and being let down, and then doing it all over again the next day.

According to George Soros, what’s important is not whether you’re right or wrong about the market. What’s important is how much money you make when you’re right about a trade, and how much money you lose when you’re wrong.

The Gods throw the dice,and they don't ask whether we want to be in the game or not.They don't care if when you go,you leave behind a lover,a home, a career or a dream.The Gods don't care whether you have it all,whether your every desire can be met through hardwork and persistence.The Gods don't want to know about your plans and hopes.Somewhere they're throwing the dice and you get chosen.From then on,winning and losing is only a question of luck.

Books or people, you ask. It's a difficult choice, I've got to say. I don't know whether people mean more than books - they're definitely not nicer or funnier or more comforting ... but still, however much I twist and turn the question, I've got to opt for people in the long run. I hope you don't lose all confidence in me now that I've admitted that. I can't for the life of me explain why I have the bad sense to prefer people. If you went purely by numbers, then books would win hands down. I've loved maybe a handful of people in my entire life, compared with tens or maybe even hundreds of books (and here I'm counting only those books I've really loved, the kind that make you happy just to look at them, that make you smile regardless of what else is happening in your life, that you always turn back to like an old friend and can remember exactly where you first "met" them - I'm sure you know just what I'm talking about). But that handful of people you love ... they're surely worth just as much as all those books.

Live in the world without any idea of what is going to happen. Whether you are going to be a winner or a loser, it doesn’t matter. Death takes everything away. Whether you lose or win is immaterial. The only thing that matters, and it has always been so, is how you played the game. Did you enjoy it?—the game itself? Then each moment is a moment of joy. ALSO BY OSHO INSIGHTS FOR A NEW WAY OF LIVING SERIES Awareness: The Key to Living in Balance Courage: The Joy of Living Dangerously Creativity: Unleashing the Forces Within Intimacy: Trusting Oneself and the Other Intuition: Knowing Beyond Logic Maturity: The Responsibility of Being Oneself OTHER BOOKS Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic The Book of Secrets India My Love: A Spiritual Journey Love, Freedom, and Aloneness Meditation: The First and Last Freedom

Some things you can't win, though I don't like to admit it. I'm not used to losing much of anything, whether its a race or a debate, but among the things that I nearly lost are my life, my neck, and my good name, and I've gained a realization: a life of unbroken success is not only impossible, it's probably not even good for you...

Learn to be gracious whether you win or lose.

It's not whether you win or lose, it's about how you play the game.

How you gather, manage and use intel in life determines whether you win or lose. That's the # 1 rule for the mavericks in business.

You don’t fight your battles because of what you think you will gain, or because they are easy, or because you’re certain you can win. You fight because you believe it’s necessary. Whether you will win or lose is a secondary concern,

When you’re living for nothing, you’ve got all your skills, you’ve got all your energy, you’re relaxed, and you don’t care. It doesn’t matter to you whether you win or lose. Now there’s human living for you. That’s what life is all about.

In other words, the best way to win the war against fat is to give up the fight. Turn over control to your body and you will settle at a healthy weight. And regardless of whether you do lose weight, your health and well-being will markedly improve. You will find that biology is much more powerful than willpower.

The gods throw the dice, and they don't ask whether we want to be in the game or not. They don't care if when you go, you leave behind a lover, a home, a career, or a dream. The gods don't care whether you have it all, whether it seems that your every desire can be met through hard work and persistence. The gods don't want to know about your plans and your hopes. Somewhere they're throwing the dice—and you are chosen. From then on, winning or losing is only a question of luck.

accept its place in your daily life. Instead of allowing whether or not you are winning or losing your war with depression to dictate your mood every day, find a way to coexist peacefully with it.

is a thin line between having enough self-confidence and being overconfident. I suppose the difference is whether you succeed or fail; when you win you are strong-willed, and when you lose you are stubborn!

Winning may be a description of something it is not. You may be wrong about your supposed objects of desire. Wanting to win, or wanting not to lose, may be how you stop yourself wondering whether races are for you.

You have to be secure in yourself to handle a woman like that, though. Insecure guys can’t do it. Their egos get in the way. They worry about whether they’re winning or losing arguments, or what other people think of them, instead of whether or not they’re happy.

In the novelist's profession, as far as I'm concerned, there's no such thing as winning or losing. Maybe numbers of copies sold, awards won, and critics' praise serve as outward standards for accomplishment in literature, but none of them really matter. What's crucial is whether your writing attains the standards you've set for yourself. Failure to reach that bar is not something you can easily explain away. When it comes to other people, you can always come up with a reasonable explanation, but you can't fool yourself. In this sense, writing novels and running full marathons are very much alike.

In the nearly fifty years since, it’s become a mantra for me and our family that, win or lose, it’s important to “get caught trying.” Whether you’re trying to win an election or pass a piece of legislation that will help millions of people, build a friendship or save a marriage, you’re never guaranteed success. But you are bound to try. Again and again and again.

She let her bad mood seethe into the silence of the carriage. Finally, she couldn’t bear the vicious cycle of her thoughts, the way they kept returning to Irex and her stupid decision to humiliate him at Bite and Sting. “Well?” she asked Arin. He sat across from her in the carriage, but didn’t lift his eyes to meet hers. He studied his hands. “Well, what?” “What do you think?” “About?” “About the party. About anything. About the bargain we made that you could at least pretend to uphold.” “You want to gossip about the party.” He seemed tired. “I want you to speak to me.” He looked at her then. She found that she had clenched her silk skirts in a fist. She let go. “For example, I know you overheard about Senator Andrax. Do you think he merits torture? Death?” “He deserves what he gets,” he said, and went quiet again. Kestrel gave up. She sank into her anger. “That isn’t what’s bothering you.” Arin sounded reluctant, almost incredulous, as if he couldn’t believe the words coming from his mouth. Kestrel waited. He said, “That man is an ass.” It was clear whom he meant. It was clear that no slave should ever say that of any Valorian. But it was magic to hear the words out loud. Kestrel breathed a laugh. “And I am a fool.” She pressed chilly hands to her forehead. “I knew what he’s like. I should have never played Bite and Sting with him. Or I should have let him win.” The corner of Arin’s mouth twitched. “I enjoyed watching him lose.” There was silence, and Kestrel, though she felt comforted, knew that Arin’s understanding of the afternoon had been fairly complete. He had waited beyond the laran trees, listening to her and Irex. Would he have continued to do nothing, had something else happened? “Do you know how to play Bite and Sting?” she asked. “Maybe.” “Either you do or you don’t.” “Whether I know or don’t doesn’t matter.” She made an impatient noise. “Because?” His teeth flashed in the late, shifting light. “Because you would not want to play against me.

I am sure you’re very pleased to have a pair of foxes,” Kestrel told Irex now, “but you’ll have to do better.” “I set down my tile,” Irex said coldly. “I cannot take it back.” “I’ll let you take it back. Just this once.” “You want me to take it back.” “Ah. So you agree that I know what tile you mean to play.” Benix shifted his weight on Lady Faris’s delicate chair. It creaked. “Flip the damn tile, Irex. And you, Kestrel: Quit toying with him.” “I’m merely offering friendly advice.” Benix snorted. Kestrel watched Irex watch her, his anger mounting as he couldn’t decide whether Kestrel’s words were a lie, the well-meant truth, or a truth she hoped he would judge a lie. He flipped the tile: a fox. “Too bad,” said Kestrel, and turned over one of hers, adding a third bee to her other two matching tiles. She swept the four gold coins of the ante to her side of the table. “See, Irex? I had only your best interests at heart.” Benix blew out a gusty sigh. He settled back in his protesting chair, shrugged, and seemed the perfect picture of amused resignation. He kept his head bowed while he mixed the Bite and Sting tiles, but Kestrel saw him shoot Irex a wary glance. Benix, too, had seen the rage that turned Irex’s face into stone. Irex shoved back from the table. He stalked over the flagstone terrace to the grass, which bloomed with the highest members of Valorian society. “That wasn’t necessary,” Benix told Kestrel. “It was,” she said. “He’s tiresome. I don’t mind taking his money, but I cannot take his company.” “You couldn’t spare a thought for me before chasing him away? Maybe I would like a chance to win his gold.” “Lord Irex can spare it,” Ronan added. “Well, I don’t like poor losers,” said Kestrel. “That’s why I play with you two.” Benix groaned. “She’s a fiend,” Ronan agreed cheerfully. “Then why do you play with her?” “I enjoy losing to Kestrel. I will give anything she will take.” “While I live in hope to one day win,” Benix said, and gave Kestrel’s hand a friendly pat. “Yes, yes,” Kestrel said. “You are both fine flatterers. Now ante up.

It’s not whether we win or lose,” said Giles. “It’s how many of the bastards we can take with us. Anyone can look away and pretend they don’t see evil, as long as it doesn’t affect them. But a man of honor has no choice but to stand up and do something. Whatever happens, you and I have lived the life we chose. Too many people live the lives other people think they ought to, following orders they don’t agree with, for causes they don’t believe in. They live lives that don’t matter, that touch no one and change nothing. For better or worse, you and I stared evil in the eye and didn’t flinch. We raised our swords and went to war, and even if we didn’t win we kicked some ass along the way. We made a difference, and that’s all any man can ask.

You would not infer causality at all. Not only do you not infer that your neighbor is angry because you left the gate open and her dog got out, you don’t infer that the dog got out because you left the gate open. You don’t infer that the car won’t start because you left the radio on. While you would be good at spatial relations, you would not grasp the causes and effects described by physics. You will not infer any unobserved causal forces, whether they be gravitational or spiritual. For example, you would not infer that a ball moved because a force was transferred to it when it was hit by another, yet because of your inability to draw inferences, you would do better in Vegas at the gaming tables. You would bet with the house and not try to infer any causal relationship between winning and losing other than chance. No lucky tie or socks or tilt of the head. You would not string out some cockamamy story about why you did something or felt some way, not because you aren’t capable of language, but again because you don’t infer cause and effect. You won’t be a hypocrite and rationalize your actions. You would also not infer the gist of anything, but would take everything literally. You would have no understanding of metaphors or abstract ideas. Without inference you would be free of prejudice, yet not inferring cause and effect would make learning more difficult. What processing comes bubbling up in your separate hemispheres determines what the contents of that hemisphere’s conscious experience will be.

The decision on whether to appeal was a fraught one. I prayed about it a lot. I looked through the Bible for various phrases, without really arriving at a good decision. Sometimes you just have to cut your losses and go--but this didn’t feel like just a business issue. There were principles involved, primarily doing the right thing by Chris. Late at night, I was sitting on my back patio talking with a friend. “What do you think I should do?” I asked. She answered with a question of her won. “Taya, what do you always say?” “Stand up for what you believe in?” “Right.” “But we might lose.” “Then remember what Chris said when going up against someone: You may win, but you will remember you fought me.” I realized that making the decision didn’t mean that I had to win. The important thing was to stand up for what I believed in. If people were going to try to abuse Chris, they were going to have to fight me. They might win, but they’d go away with scars.

Did you bring money with you, or shall we play for markers?" She flipped the stack of cards to the table with a professional twist of her wrist. "I don't play for less than a guinea a hand." His lips twitched. "The question is not if I have money. The question is, do you?" "I don't need funds, as I don't plan on losing," she said, her gaze mocking. For a moment, he thought he'd heard her incorrectly. Slowly, he said, "I beg your pardon, but are you saying you could beat me at a game of chance?" A dismissive smile rested on her lips. "Please, Dougal, let's speak frankly," she drawled softly. "Naturally, I expect to win; I was taught by a master." Dougal was entranced. He'd been challenged to many things before, but no one had so blatantly dismissed his chances of winning. "A giunea a hand?" "At least." "I didn't realize I'd need a note from my banker, or I'd have brought one with me." Her eyes sparkled with pure mischief, which inflamed him more. "If you've no money with you, then perhaps there are other things we can play for." The words hung in the room, as thick as the smoke that seeped from the fireplace. Like a blinding bolt of light from a storm-black sky, everything fell into place. This was why she and her minions had worked so hard to convince him that the house was worthless. If he thought it of low value, he'd be eager to wager the deed. Of all the devious plots! Yet Dougal found himself fighting a grin. He'd been feted and petted, fawned upon and sought out, but until now, no one had gone to such lengths to fleece him. Dugal couldn't look away from Sophia. He knew his own worth; women had paid attention to him for so long that he took it for granted. He'd dallied and toyed, taken and enjoyed. But never, in all of his years, had he so desired any woman as he did this one. The irony of it was that she desired him,too-but only for the contents of his pocket. Dougal didn't know whether to laugh or fume. He should be insulted, but instead he found himself watching her with new appreciation.

Story time. In September of 1869, there was a terrible fire at the Avondale coal mine near Plymouth, Pennsylvania. Over 100 coal miners lost their lives. Horrific conditions and safety standards were blamed for the disaster. It wasn’t the first accident. Hundreds of miners died in these mines every year. And those that didn’t, lived in squalor. Children as young as eight worked day in and out. They broke their bodies and gave their lives for nothing but scraps. That day of the fire, as thousands of workers and family members gathered outside the mine to watch the bodies of their friends and loved ones brought to the surface, a man named John Siney stood atop one of the carts and shouted to the crowd: Men, if you must die with your boots on, die for your families, your homes, your country, but do not longer consent to die, like rats in a trap, for those who have no more interest in you than in the pick you dig with. That day, thousands of coal miners came together to unionize. That organization, the Workingmen’s Benevolent Association, managed to fight, for a few years at least, to raise safety standards for the mines by calling strikes and attempting to force safety legislation. ... Until 1875, when the union was obliterated by the mine owners. Why was the union broken so easily? Because they were out in the open. They were playing by the rules. How can you win a deliberately unfair game when the rules are written by your opponent? The answer is you can’t. You will never win. Not as long as you follow their arbitrary guidelines. This is a new lesson to me. She’s been teaching me so many things, about who I am. About what I am. What I really am. About what must be done. Anyway, during this same time, it is alleged a separate, more militant group of individuals had formed in secret. The Molly Maguires. Named after a widow in Ireland who fought against predatory landlords, the coal workers of Pennsylvania became something a little more proactive, supposedly assassinating over two dozen coal mine supervisors and managers. ... Until Pinkerton agents, hired by the same mine owners, infiltrated the group and discovered their identities. Several of the alleged Mollies ended up publicly hanged. Others disappeared. You get the picture. So, that’s another type of secret society. The yeah-we’re-terrorists-but-we-strongly-feel-we’re-justified-and-fuck-you-if-you-don’t-agree society. So, what’s the moral of this little history lesson? This sort of thing happens all day, every day across the universe. It happens in Big Ways, and it happens in little ways, too. The strong stomp on the weak. The weak fight back, usually within the boundaries of the rat trap they find themselves confined. They almost always remain firmly stomped. But sometimes, the weak gather in secret. They make plans. They work outside the system to effect change. Like the Mollies, they usually end up just as stomped as everyone else. But that’s just life. At least they fucking tried. They died with their boots on, as much as I hate that expression. They died with their boots on for their people, their family, not for some rich, nameless organization that gives no shits whether they live or die. Or go extinct. Or are trapped for a millennia after they’re done being used. In my opinion, that’s the only type of society that’s worth joining, worth fighting for. Sure, you’re probably gonna die. But if you find yourself in such a position where such an organization is necessary, what do you have to lose? How can you look at yourself if you don’t do everything you can? And that brings us to the door you’re standing in front of right now. What does all this have to do with what you’re going to find on the other side? Nothing!

Now, as we all know, the good field commander is the chief support of the realm. If the support is sturdy on all four sides, then the realm will be strong. But if the support is flawed, the realm will always be unstable. Therefore, there are several ways the ruler may imperil his armies: If he fails to understand when the army cannot advance or retreat, and he orders them to do so. (This is a classic case of hobbling the troops.) If he fails to understand the respective tasks of his Three Armies,7 and he governs them all in the same way, then his army officers will be confused. And if he fails to see how to balance and synchronize the operations of his Three Armies, then his officers will doubt his competence. Once the Three Armies are not only confused but also suspicious, then trouble from the local lords will surely ensue.8 (This is a classic case of “inducing chaos in the army and throwing victory away.”) To realize victory, go by five paths: (1) by figuring out whether it is possible to fight or not; (2) by recognizing how many troops are needed for the task;9 (3) by unifying the aims and ambitions of the high- and low-ranking; (4) by being prepared for the unexpected; and (5) by the ruler’s refusal to meddle with his able commanders.10 These five—they are the Way to taste victory. And so I say, “Know the enemy; know yourself, and you will meet with no danger in a hundred battles. If you do not know the enemy, but you know yourself, then you will win and lose by turns. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will lose every battle, certainly.

What are we taking away from England, what from France, what from America? Nothing at all! How many times did I offer them peace?! What else should I be offering them? They are men who say, like Churchill, “I want war.” With them, there is a certain clique. And behind these corrupt, drunk creatures, there are the paying forces of international Jewry. On the other side, there is an old Freemason who believes that through a war he can win time for stabilizing his bankrupt economy again. And so, both states again confront the same enemies for the very same reasons. And they are forced to fight together, to lead the same struggle, which ties them in life and in death. And there is a fourth element: in both cases, there are two men who come from the people, who have kindled the revolutions and have uplifted their states. In the few free hours I have had these last weeks, I read a lot about the Fascist revolution in Italy. It seemed to me as though I had before me the history of my own party: everything so similar, so much the same. The same struggle, the same enemies, the same opponents, the same arguments-it really is a miracle. And now, we fight in the same theaters of war: Germans in Africa, Italians in the east. We fight together, and nobody should deceive himself: This struggle will be seen through to our joint victory! And finally, a third state joined us. For many years, I have wanted to have good relations with this state-Japan-as you know from Mein Kampf. And so, the three great have-nots are now united. We will see who will be stronger in this struggle: those who have nothing to lose and everything to win, or those who have everything to lose and who cannot win anything. What does England want to win? What does America want to win? They have so much that they do not know what to do with all they own. They need to feed only a few people per square kilometer. They do not have all those worries that trouble us. For us, a single bad harvest is a national disaster. They have the whole world at their disposal. For decades now, they have robbed us, exploited us, bled us white, and still they have not eliminated their own economic misery. They have more raw materials than they could possibly need, and still they have not managed to find a reasonable solution to their problems. We will see on whom Providence will bestow the victor’s laurels in this struggle: on the man who has everything and wants to take even the last bit from the man who has almost nothing, or on the man, who defends the last bit he owns. And when a British archbishop prays to the Lord that He might strike Germany and Europe with Bolshevism as a punishment-then I can only say, it will not come to Germany. But whether or not He will strike England, that is another question. Speech in the Sportpalast Berlin, January 30, 1942

The tactical situation seems simple enough. Thanks to Marx’s prophecy, the Communists knew for certain that misery must soon increase. They also knew that the party could not win the confidence of the workers without fighting for them, and with them, for an improvement of their lot. These two fundamental assumptions clearly determined the principles of their general tactics. Make the workers demand their share, back them up in every particular episode in their unceasing fight for bread and shelter. Fight with them tenaciously for the fulfilment of their practical demands, whether economic or political. Thus you will win their confidence. At the same time, the workers will learn that it is impossible for them to better their lot by these petty fights, and that nothing short of a wholesale revolution can bring about an improvement. For all these petty fights are bound to be unsuccessful; we know from Marx that the capitalists simply cannot continue to compromise and that, ultimately, misery must increase. Accordingly, the only result—but a valuable one—of the workers’ daily fight against their oppressors is an increase in their class consciousness; it is that feeling of unity which can be won only in battle, together with a desperate knowledge that only revolution can help them in their misery. When this stage is reached, then the hour has struck for the final show-down. This is the theory and the Communists acted accordingly. At first they support the workers in their fight to improve their lot. But, contrary to all expectations and prophecies, the fight is successful. The demands are granted. Obviously, the reason is that they had been too modest. Therefore one must demand more. But the demands are granted again44. And as misery decreases, the workers become less embittered, more ready to bargain for wages than to plot for revolution. Now the Communists find that their policy must be reversed. Something must be done to bring the law of increasing misery into operation. For instance, colonial unrest must be stirred up (even where there is no chance of a successful revolution), and with the general purpose of counteracting the bourgeoisification of the workers, a policy fomenting catastrophes of all sorts must be adopted. But this new policy destroys the confidence of the workers. The Communists lose their members, with the exception of those who are inexperienced in real political fights. They lose exactly those whom they describe as the ‘vanguard of the working class’; their tacitly implied principle: ‘The worse things are, the better they are, since misery must precipitate revolution’, makes the workers suspicious—the better the application of this principle, the worse are the suspicions entertained by the workers. For they are realists; to obtain their confidence, one must work to improve their lot. Thus the policy must be reversed again: one is forced to fight for the immediate betterment of the workers’ lot and to hope at the same time for the opposite. With this, the ‘inner contradictions’ of the theory produce the last stage of confusion. It is the stage when it is hard to know who is the traitor, since treachery may be faithfulness and faithfulness treachery. It is the stage when those who followed the party not simply because it appeared to them (rightly, I am afraid) as the only vigorous movement with humanitarian ends, but especially because it was a movement based on a scientific theory, must either leave it, or sacrifice their intellectual integrity; for they must now learn to believe blindly in some authority. Ultimately, they must become mystics—hostile to reasonable argument. It seems that it is not only capitalism which is labouring under inner contradictions that threaten to bring about its downfall …

When you don't worry whether you win or lose, or you don't even consider its effect, you give your hundred percent, then that is really playing, that is a real game.

Adecade ago, Bill Gates wrote: “The most meaningful way to differentiate your company from your competition, the best way to put distance between you and the crowd, is to do an outstanding job with information. How you gather, manage, and use information will determine whether you win or lose.

They hadn’t meant for it to happen. They hadn’t planned for things to end up the way they had, but sometimes, he figured, you have to accept the hand life deals you. True, maybe it’s the luck of the draw whether you win or lose, but he was more than happy to play this hand out.

How well you run determines whether or not you will win or lose.

Sure, people win and lose at things all the time. And it can be argued there are external measures for whether or not a person lived a “good” life. But only you will really ever know whether your life was good for you. Only you know the level of satisfaction you have within your heart and soul. Only you know what demons have plagued your mental emotional space for years. So I suggest that, until the lights are turned off for good on this life of ours, we work less on one-upping each other and more on the lessons to be learned, the pivots we can make, and the growth we can attain. Any winning and any losing is only temporary. The stream doesn’t do a victory dance and decide to cease because it reached the ocean. It keeps on flowing.

God is fighting your battles, whether you know it or not. When He allows you to go onto a battlefield, it is because He knows you will win it and should you lose a battle, God knows you will learn from it.

Characteristics of Healthy, Constructive Anger Characteristics of Unhealthy, Destructive Anger 1. You express your feelings in a tactful way. 1. You deny your feelings and pout (passive aggression) or lash out and attack the other person (active aggression). 2. You try to see the world through the other person’s eyes, even if you disagree. 2. You argue defensively and insist there’s no validity in what the other person is saying. 3. You convey a spirit of respect for the other person, even though you may feel quite angry with him or her. 3. You believe the other person is despicable and deserving of punishment. You appear condescending or disrespectful. 4. You do something productive and try to solve the problem. 4. You give up and see yourself as a helpless victim. 5. You try to learn from the situation so you will be wiser in the future. 5. You don’t learn anything new. You feel that your view of the situation is absolutely valid. 6. You eventually let go of the anger and feel happy again. 6. Your anger becomes addictive. You won’t let go of it. 7. You examine your own behavior to see how you may have contributed to the problem. 7. You blame the other person and see yourself as an innocent victim. 8. You believe that you and the other person both have valid ideas and feelings that deserve to be understood. 8. You insist that you are entirely right and the other person is entirely wrong. You feel convinced that truth and justice are on your side. 9. Your commitment to the other person increases. Your goal is to feel closer to him or her. 9. You avoid or reject the other person. You write him or her off. 10. You look for a solution where you can both win and nobody has to lose. 10. You feel like you’re in a battle or a competition. If one person wins, you feel that the other one will be a loser. Now that you’ve examined sadness and anger, I’d like you to compare healthy fear with neurotic anxiety. What are some of the differences? Think about the kinds of events that might bring on these feelings, how long the feelings last, whether the thoughts are realistic or distorted, and so forth. See if you can think of five differences, and list them here. The answer to this exercise is on page 88. Try to come up with your own ideas before you look. Characteristics of Healthy Fear Characteristics of Neurotic Anxiety 1. 1. 2. 2. 3. 3. 4. 4. 5. 5. Similarly, healthy remorse is not the same as neurotic guilt. What are some of the differences? List them here. Characteristics of Healthy Remorse Characteristics of

A knight must throw down his gauntlet to the Devil and fight for right against the servants of sin. Whether you win or lose matters not, only whether you follow the quest. Remember that virtue always prevails.

This is the way it is with all people, I’ve learned. A person’s strengths almost always have a flip side. Obama’s strengths are prodigious, but he’s not perfect or exempt from blame for some of the disappointments I hear expressed about him ever more frequently these days. The day after the Affordable Care Act passed, a slightly hungover but very happy president walked into my office to reflect on the momentous events of the night before. “Not used to martinis on work nights,” he said with a smile, as he flopped down on the couch across from my desk, still bearing the effects of the late-night celebration he hosted for the staff after the law was passed. “I honestly was more excited last night than I was the night I was elected. Elections are like winning the semifinals. They just give you the opportunity to make a difference. What we did last night? That’s what really matters.” That attitude and approach is what I admire most about Obama, the thing that makes him stand apart. For him, politics and elections are only vehicles, not destinations. They give you the chance to serve. To Obama’s way of thinking, far worse than losing an election is squandering the opportunity to make the biggest possible difference once you get the chance to govern. That’s what allowed him to say “damn the torpedoes” and dive fearlessly into health care reform, despite the obvious political risks. It is why he was able to make many other tough calls when the prevailing political wisdom would have had him punt and wait for another chance with the ball. Yet there is the flip side to that courage and commitment. Obama has limited patience or understanding for officeholders whose concerns are more parochial—which would include most of Congress and many world leaders. “What are they so afraid of?” he asked after addressing the Senate Democrats on health reform, though the answer seemed readily apparent: losing their jobs in the next election! He has aggravated more than one experienced politician by telling them why acting boldly not only was their duty but also served their political needs. Whether it’s John Boehner or Bibi Netanyahu, few practiced politicians appreciate being lectured on where their political self-interest lies. That hint of moral superiority and disdain for politicians who put elections first has hurt Obama as negotiator, and it’s why Biden, a politician’s politician, has often had better luck.

Let’s play rummy,” he said. “I don’t know how to play,” I said. “You’ll have to teach me.” He gave me a rundown on the basics; then we started a game. For some strange reason I was able to beat him at rummy even though he’d been playing the card game his whole life. So we moved on to dominoes. Again Jep taught me the basics, and we practiced a little then started a game. I beat him again. He wasn’t smiling and raising his eyebrow anymore, and I could tell the competition was heating up and he wasn’t enjoying losing to me. We moved on to board games, and he pulled out Battleship. “I’ve never played it,” I said. “Okay, I’ll teach you.” And wouldn’t you know it? I won again. Although I wasn’t as outwardly competitive as the Robertson clan, you have to have a strong competitive streak to do well in sports, and I definitely had that inside me. I liked winning, but I could tell Jep didn’t like losing. I found out later that the Robertsons were extremely competitive and played for blood, whether it was Monopoly, dominoes, or card games. But back then I didn’t know, and what Jep said next really surprised me. “I want you to leave.” His face was stern and his eyes hard. “What?” I said, laughing. I thought he was joking. He wasn’t. “I want you to leave this house right now.” “You want me to leave?” “Yes.” So I did. I gathered up my stuff, walked out the front door, and got in my car. Jep trailed behind, and right before I drove away, he leaned over and said, “I’m sorry I’m so competitive. I learned it from my grandparents, my dad, and my uncles.” He told me later about the domino games at Granny and Pa’s with loud arguing and slamming of dominoes on the table. “I knew those games,” Jep said. “I was really good. None of my friends could stay with me at all, so when you beat me, I was embarrassed. Nobody was supposed to beat me at those games.” So we learned early on to only play on the same team. We never play against each other if we can help it. Otherwise, I’ll be out in the doghouse when I beat Jep!

Imagine this for a moment, if you will (you can reject the premise later on, but please just go along with it for now): imagine a baseball game.  The Dodgers are playing the Giants.  If you don’t know much about baseball, you may not know the Dodgers and Giants are bitter rivals.  They both want to win, obviously.  And obviously it’s just a sport, so it’s ok that they both want to win. But suppose the score is 10-1, with the Dodgers leading, and it’s the ninth (last) inning.  Suppose after all those games, and all those years and decades (over a century) of this bitter rivalry, the players, managers, coaches and fans said, “Let’s do something different.  Just for this one game, let’s see if we can play to a tie.  It will be different.  I mean we’ve played hundreds of games the other way.  And that was fun.  But let’s just try something different for now.  I mean, all this sweating and fighting and yelling just to win a game—it’s not the only thing in the world.  It’s good, but why not try something new for a change?  So let’s just play the game differently the rest of the way out, this one game.  And how about the fans of the Dodgers and the fans of the Giants switch caps, or at least try to root for the other guys for a while?  I mean, it’s just this once—it can’t hurt, right?  This old game of baseball, it’s a wonderful game, but come on—do we have to play the same way over and over game after game for the rest of our lives?  Just once can we do things differently?” Well, i know some of you sports fans are laughing right now, if not vomiting.  I mean, this is kind of ridiculous—trying to lose, on purpose?  It’s a bit of a left-wing stereotype i’m living up to right now.  So go ahead, get it all out of your system.  Call me every name in the book.  Say the world will fall apart if one baseball game is played differently.  I mean competition is the basis of everything.  If we didn’t compete over everything in life, what sort of meaning would life have?  Our civilization would fall apart.  The Dodgers letting the Giants win would be the end of western civilization.  It would destroy all our western values.  It might even be un-Christ-like.  A lot of you may not be able to imagine such a ridiculous thing even being considered, much less actually happening. And i find this interesting.  I find it interesting that we are so wrapped up in the idea that there must be winners and losers, and that somehow the outcome of this competition (whether it’s a baseball game or the life of a nation) is fair because that’s simply the natural order of things.  The side that wins is supposed to win; the side that loses is supposed to lose.  To dispute this is to dispute the most basic assumptions of who we are. If winning is this important to us, and—by extension—competition is too, then we need to be completely certain that the rules are fair, that nobody is cheating.  That is, suppose the Dodgers were cheating and that’s how they scored 10 runs?  What would we do then?  They probably should forfeit the game, right?  Well, i say white amerika has been cheating.  We’re not all bad—we have talent, we played hard, we love our mothers, but the fact is we’ve been cheating.  White amerika should forfeit.

Employee networks are extremely valuable to companies as a source of information. As Bill Gates wrote more than a decade ago, “The most meaningful way to differentiate your company from your competition, the best way to put distance between you and the crowd, is to do an outstanding job with information. How you gather, manage, and use information will determine whether you win or lose.”1

However, in asymmetrical warfare, whether or not “demands” are met (i.e., whether you “win” or “lose” in the conventional sense) is secondary to perception of the intangibles in the globalized world of tweets and instantaneous information and disinformation. Hamas

This is the part of film acting that I was only too happy to leave behind, the part that became more agonizing as time went on. Yet you have to go through those terrifying times if you are ever to have the magic ones, the times when it all works—and to be truthful, those I have missed. There were perhaps only eight or nine of them out of forty-five films, but they were the times when I stepped into my light and my muse was with me, all my channels were open, the creative flow coursed through my body, and I became. Whether the scene was sad or funny, tragic or triumphant, never mattered. When it worked it was like being enveloped in love and light, as I danced the intricate dance between technique and emotion, fully inside the scene while simultaneously a separate part of me observed and enjoyed the unfolding. Ah, but just because it has happened once doesn’t mean it will again! Each time is starting new, raw; it’s a crapshoot—you just never know. Which is why this profession is so great for the heart—and so hard on the nerves. I always assumed that the more you did something the easier it would get, but in the case of my career I found the opposite to be true. Every year the work seemed to get harder and my fear more paralyzing. Once, on the set of Old Gringo, I watched Gregory Peck late in his career doing a long, very difficult scene over and over again all day long. I saw that he too was scared. I went up to him afterward and hugged him and told him how beautiful and transparent he had been. “But, Greg,” I asked, “why do we do this to ourselves? Especially you. You’ve had a long and incredible career. You could easily retire. Why are you still willing to be scared?” Greg sat for a moment, rubbing his chin. Then he said, “Well, Jane, maybe it’s like my friend Walter Matthau says. His biggest thrill in life is to be gambling and losing a bit more than he can afford and then have one chance to win it all back. That’s what you live for—that moment. The crapshoot. If it’s easy, what’s the point?

Never gamble with other people’s money,” he said to me the next day, as if I should have known it. “If you lose, you’ll be in debt to them. If you win, you’ll feel you’re owed something, but it’s their choice whether to share the winnings with you—and how much. It’s a position no woman should put herself in.

Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, for example, might be a bit less certain in his gloomy assessment of human nature: “Be warned that if you wish, as I do, to build a society in which individuals cooperate generously and unselfishly towards a common good, you can expect little help from biological nature. Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish.”10 Maybe, but cooperation runs deep in our species too. Recent findings in comparative primate intelligence have led researchers Vanessa Woods and Brian Hare to wonder whether an impulse toward cooperation might actually be the key to our species-defining intelligence. They write, “Instead of getting a jump start with the most intelligent hominids surviving to produce the next generation, as is often suggested, it may have been the more sociable hominids—because they were better at solving problems together—who achieved a higher level of fitness and allowed selection to favor more sophisticated problem-solving over time.”11 Humans got smart, they hypothesize, because our ancestors learned to cooperate. Innately selfish or not, the effects of food provisioning and habitat depletion on both wild chimpanzees and human foragers suggest that Dawkins and others who argue that humans are innately aggressive, selfish beasts should be careful about citing these chimp data in support of their case. Human groups tend to respond to food surplus and storage with behavior like that observed in chimps: heightened hierarchical social organization, intergroup violence, territorial perimeter defense, and Machiavellian alliances. In other words, humans—like chimps—tend to fight when there’s something worth fighting over. But for most of prehistory, there was no food surplus to win or lose and no home base to defend.

The kind of scoreboard that will drive the highest levels of engagement with your team will be one that is designed solely for (and often by) the players. This players’ scoreboard is quite different from the complex coach’s scoreboard that leaders love to create. It must be simple, so simple that members of the team can determine instantly if they are winning or losing. Why does this matter? If the scoreboard isn’t clear, the game you want people to play will be abandoned in the whirlwind of other activities. And if your team doesn’t know whether or not they are winning the game, they are probably on their way to losing.

MSB: La Rochefoucauld says that Cardinal de Retz (whom he didn't like) looked upon Pascal as a great rival. RG: The cardinal didn't have Pascal's genius, but he did have the human experience that Pascal lacked as both a very sick and a very lonely man. Montaigne, on the other hand, was too happy, too untroubled. Montaigne really prefigures the French bourgeois who has tasted success—the rat in his cheese, as one might say. MSB: You consider Montaigne's carefree spirit as a form of social blindness. Do you see a comparable danger in the determination to experience love as the only thing, the last thing possible in life? One finds this determination embodied, for example, by Prince Myshkin in Dostoevsky's The Idiot. RG: Prince Myshkin is an ambiguous, ambivalent character, and to consider him as truly good, as many people do, is an error. Looking at Dostoevsky's notebooks for The Idiot, we see that Prince Myshkin, just like Stavrogin in The Demons, is the hypostasis of a person who has no desire. The absence of desire is Stavrogin's weakness, his suicidal side. He makes all sorts of attempts to arouse in others the desire, the mimetic desire, that he doesn't have. This is very clear in the duels: he always wins, because he never loses his nerve. Myshkin's attitude is much the same, I believe. Dostoevsky himself, confronted with a personality that was stronger than his own, wondered if it was the result of an excess of desire, or of a total absence of it. His notebooks make it clear that Stavrogin and Myshkin are monstrous figures who lack the same thing. Like Stavrogin, Myshkin has a negative effect on people around him—General Ivolgin, for example. Women fall in love with him because he has no mimetic desire. They are therefore his victims, although Myshkin himself seems not to understand what is going on. Isn't this precisely because he is unacquainted with mimetic desire? It seems to be a kind of physical defect, almost a biological deficiency. Otherwise, Myshkin must be regarded as a kind of Buddhist. One character in The Idiot wonders whether Myshkin isn't carrying out a deliberate strategy. His attitude may well be entirely calculating, who knows? Dostoevsky himself, it seems to me, hadn't answered these questions in his own mind. MSB

Do you want to know my mindset? I play whether I win or lose if I believe in the play. All in! You've to kill me. I won't tap out :-) lol

What are these two lies - these Illusions - that for too long have done their best to keep us from a real peace where we can still remain human? One is certainly the glory of war. It offers us cheaply, but with tragic results, a sense of power in the face of that 20th Century helplessness and powerlessness we hear so much about. War is about the power that fear demands of us, isn't it? Power, after all (the lie assures us), is what the world is really about, isn't it? The meek are fools. The reasonable are suckers. If you really believe in your country, your family, your values, you will wage war to protect them - because there is indeed an Enemy out there and the Enemy, like a host of fallen angels, is out to destroy everything you value. By waging war you'll be redeemed by war's very violence, won't you? The consequences of this are of course terrible: the perpetuation of Power Uber Alles, of war itself, of the assumption that whether we win or lose our submission to Power redeems us.

In the novelist's profession, as far as I'm concerned, there's no such thing as winning or losing. Maybe numbers of copies sold, awards won, critics' praise serve as outward standards for accomplishment in literature but none of them really matter. What's crucial is whether your writing attains the standards you've set for yourself. Failure to reach that bar is not something you can easily explain away. When it comes to other people, you can always come up with an explanation, but you can't fool yourself. In this sense, writing novels and running full marathons are very much alike. Basically, a writer has a quiet inner motivation, and doesn't seek validation in the outwardly visible.

Whether you are trying to shed ten pounds or a hundred, it didn’t take you days to gain that unwanted weight. It took months, probably years, of not-so-great habits—like skipping meals, reaching for fried food, sipping sugary beverages—to pack on the pounds. Why should anyone, including you, expect to lose the weight overnight? I’m here to tell you that consistency wins the race. Relax.

Why should we care so much about a mere £700,000? Let’s be clear on this point: Vote Leave’s scheme was the largest known breach of campaign finance law in British history. But even if it wasn’t, elections, like a 100-meter sprint in the Olympics, are zero-sum games, where the winner takes all. Whoever comes first, even if it’s by just a few votes or milliseconds, wins the whole race: They get to sit in the public office. They get the gold medal. They get to name your Supreme Court justices. They get to take your country out of the European Union. The only difference, of course, is that if you are caught cheating in the Olympics, you get disqualified and lose your medal. There are no discussions of whether the doped athlete “would have won anyway”—the integrity of the sport demands a clean race. But in politics, we do not presume integrity as a necessary prerequisite to our democracy. There are harsher punishments for athletes who cheat in sport than for campaigns that cheat in elections.

Well, according to game theory, you should never tell anyone when your birthday is.” “I don’t follow.” “It’s a lose-lose proposition. There’s no winning strategy.” “What do you mean, strategy? It’s a birthday.” Chelsea had said exactly the same thing when I’d tried to explain it to her. Look, I’d said, say you tell everyone when it is and nothing happens. It’s kind of a slap in the face. Or suppose they throw you a party, Chelsea had replied. Then you don’t know whether they’re doing it sincerely, or if your earlier interaction just guilted them into observing an occasion they’d rather have ignored. But if you don’t tell anyone, and nobody commemorates the event, there’s no reason to feel badly because after all, nobody knew. And if someone does buy you a drink then you know it’s sincere because nobody would go to all the trouble of finding out when your birthday is—and then celebrating it—if they didn’t honestly like you. Of course, the Gang was more up to speed on such things. I didn’t have to explain it verbally: I could just grab a piece of ConSensus and plot out the payoff matrix, Tell/Don’t Tell along the columns, Celebrated/Not Celebrated along the rows, the unassailable black-and-white logic of cost and benefit in the squares themselves. The math was irrefutable: The one winning strategy was concealment. Only fools revealed their birthdays.

Whether we win or lose in the marketplace is dependent on the state of our mind. That is where the battle of life is won or lost. If you are going to get positive results out of life, then you need to be in control of your mind, ordering it in the direction of the result you seek.

Circumstances never decide whether you lose or win , it is your own reaction that decides.

Being a startup CEO is a lot like being a quarterback or a goalie in sports—win and you get all the glory, lose and you get all the blame, whether you deserve it or not.

Keep in mind, severing ties is not about winning or losing. You either have freedom and happiness, or you don’t. You need to simply not care whether other people think you’ve let your family win. In fact, I do not care if my family thinks they won. I did not lose anything. I have everything they do not: my freedom and my happiness.

The brain’s tendency to prioritize the present moment means you can’t rely on good intentions. When you make a plan—to lose weight, write a book, or learn a language—you are actually making plans for your future self. And when you envision what you want your life to be like, it is easy to see the value in taking actions with long-term benefits. We all want better lives for our future selves. However, when the moment of decision arrives, instant gratification usually wins. You are no longer making a choice for Future You, who dreams of being fitter or wealthier or happier. You are choosing for Present You, who wants to be full, pampered, and entertained. As a general rule, the more immediate pleasure you get from an action, the more strongly you should question whether it aligns with your long-term goals.*

There is a famous Japanese proverb that says, “After winning the battle, tighten your helmet.” In other words, the battle does not end when you win. The battle only ends when you get lazy, when you lose your sense of commitment, and when you stop paying attention. This is zanshin as well: the act of living with alertness regardless of whether the goal has already been achieved.

shrugged. No point making a big thing out of it. “Well, according to game theory, you should never tell anyone when your birthday is.” “I don’t follow.” “It’s a lose-lose proposition. There’s no winning strategy.” “What do you mean, strategy? It’s a birthday.” Chelsea had said exactly the same thing when I’d tried to explain it to her. Look, I’d said, say you tell everyone when it is and nothing happens. It’s kind of a slap in the face. Or suppose they throw you a party, Chelsea had replied. Then you don’t know whether they’re doing it sincerely, or if your earlier interaction just guilted them into observing an occasion they’d rather have ignored. But if you don’t tell anyone, and nobody commemorates the event, there’s no reason to feel badly because after all, nobody knew. And if someone does buy you a drink then you know it’s sincere because nobody would go to all the trouble of finding out when your birthday is—and then celebrating it—if they didn’t honestly like you. Of course, the Gang was more up to speed on such things. I didn’t have to explain it verbally: I could just grab a piece of ConSensus and plot out the payoff matrix, Tell/Don’t Tell along the columns, Celebrated/Not Celebrated along the rows, the unassailable black-and-white logic of cost and benefit in the squares themselves. The math was irrefutable: The one winning strategy was concealment. Only fools revealed their birthdays.

Because in New York it’s not whether you win or lose—it’s how you lay the blame.

The crowd Passing through the crowded places, Witnessing life’s contours appearing on unknown people’s faces, They all chase someone or something, Almost like seasons changing, Where spring chases the summer, summer chases the autumn, that loves to chase the winter, In crowded places life acts like seasons, sometimes in ways unfair and at times in ways fairer, Because few faces display real smiles, while many act to smile, It is obvious when they cant recognise their own reflections in mirrors, exuding their life’s snippets of million miles, As they go past me and I walk past a lot of these men and women. I feel a common thread of life with which we all are woven, It shows in their glances and it shows in my brief scans of their appearances, But they go past me and I walk past them to chase our own desires and our new chances, After a while the crowd forgets about me and I too forget everything about the crowd, A feeling of silence overcomes the scene and I can hear my own heart beats clear and loud, Then as I walk through the multitude of life’s representations, I feel I am walking towards some lesser known feelings, life’s new sensations, But the crowd does not stop moving or enjoy a moment of pause, Because everyone in the crowd has life’s contours to cross and fulfil fate’s daily clause, That needs them in the arena of life everyday, in the form of crowd that is always moving and sometimes winning and at times losing, But riding the life’s lure and its ocean of uncertainties the crowd relentlessly keeps cruising, How far will each one go and how long will each one last, Is what life wants to know, it is so today and it has been so in the past, That is why life invented crowds where it walks beside each one of them without being recognised, And it tried to evict me from the rhythm of the crowd because her presence I had realised, The crowd keeps getting bigger and the pacing steps never stop, It is autumn now, leaves are falling and many a flowers drop, But the true season of life can be witnessed in the movement of the crowd, Where you always have to move in some direction, whether you are someone who is hated or someone who is loved!

WHY SMALL HABITS MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE It is so easy to overestimate the importance of one defining moment and underestimate the value of making small improvements on a daily basis. Too often, we convince ourselves that massive success requires massive action. Whether it is losing weight, building a business, writing a book, winning a championship, or achieving any other goal, we put pressure on ourselves to make some earth-shattering improvement that everyone will talk about. Meanwhile, improving by 1 percent isn’t particularly notable—sometimes it isn’t even noticeable—but it can be far more meaningful, especially in the long run. The difference a tiny improvement can make over time is astounding. Here’s how the math works out: if you can get 1 percent better each day for one year, you’ll end up thirty-seven times better by the time you’re done. Conversely, if you get 1 percent worse each day for one year, you’ll decline nearly down to zero. What starts as a small win or a minor setback accumulates into something much more. 1% BETTER EVERY DAY 1% worse every day for one year. 0.99365 = 00.03 1% better every day for one year. 1.01365 = 37.78

The way we field outcomes is path dependent. It doesn’t so much matter where we end up as how we got there. What has happened in the recent past drives our emotional response much more than how we are doing overall. That’s how we can win $100 and be sad, and lose $100 and be happy. The zoom lens doesn’t just magnify, it distorts. This is true whether we are in a casino, making investment decisions, in a relationship, or on the side of the road with a flat tire. If we got a big promotion last week and have a flat tire right now, we are cursing our lives, complaining about how unlucky we are. Our feelings are not a reaction to the average of how things are going. We feel sad if we are breaking even (or winning) on an investment that used to be valued much higher. In relationships, even small disagreements seem big in the midst of the disagreement. The problem in all these situations (and countless others) is that our in-the-moment emotions affect the quality of the decisions we make in those moments, and we are very willing to make decisions when we are not emotionally fit to do so.

Whether you win or lose, whether you walk away unscathed or tattered, dirtied, and bloodied from the battle, if you have faced your challenge with everything you have, then you are a gladiator in the truest sense.

Because human language has a degree of inescapable vagueness inherent in it, it can never give an absolutely transparent picture of the world. Even the most familiar terms have some ambiguity. Take, for example, the term 'rain' We all know what rain is. We all know when it is raining and when it is not. Or do we? How do we classify a heavy mist? Or sleet? Some may call these conditions rain, while others would not. Imagine a scenerio in which a mist was coming down. A baseball game may not be rained out in such conditions, but on the other hand, you may wear your rain coat to the game. Whether or not it is raining becomes a matter of perspective. Wittgenstein pointed out similar ambiguities in the term 'game.' Is the statement 'Games have winners and losers' analytic? Do all games, by definition, involve winning and losing? Certainly some games do, but other events we call 'games' are played just for fun, with no winners or losers. As Wittgenstein pointed out, sometimes we have to settle for family resemblances rather than precise definitions of words.

After spending time with people who care about me, I realized some things. People who love you spend time with you both on and off the track. They go to events and stay until the end to be around you because they want to. It’s not about whether you win or lose. I’m a World Champion and you treat me like a piece of shit on your shoe. Inconvenient and unwanted.

33. Don’t believe in good or bad, or winning and losing, or victory and defeat, or ups and down. At your lowest and your highest, whether you are happy or despairing or calm or angry, there is a kernel of you that stays the same. That is the you that matters. 34. Don’t worry about the time you lose to despair. The time you will have afterwards has just doubled its value. 35. Be transparent to yourself. Make a greenhouse for your mind. Observe. 36. Read Emily Dickinson. Read Graham Green. Read Italo Calvino. Read Maya Angelou. Read anything you want. Just read. Books are possibilities. They are escape routes. They give you options when you have none. Each one can be a home for an uprooted mind. 37. If the sun is shining, and you can be outside, be outside. 38. Remember that the key thing about life on earth is change. Cars rust. Paper yellows. Technology dates. Caterpillars become butterflies. Nights morph into days. Depression lifts. 39. Just when you feel you have no time to relax, know that this is the moment you most need to make time to relax. 40. Be brave. Be strong. Breathe, and keep going. You will thank yourself later.

How to live (forty pieces of advice I feel to be helpful but which I don’t always follow) 1. Appreciate happiness when it is there 2. Sip, don’t gulp. 3. Be gentle with yourself. Work less. Sleep more. 4. There is absolutely nothing in the past that you can change. That’s basic physics. 5. Beware of Tuesdays. And Octobers. 6. Kurt Vonnegut was right. “Reading and writing are the most nourishing forms of meditation anyone has so far found.” 7. Listen more than you talk. 8. Don’t feel guilty about being idle. More harm is probably done to the world through work than idleness. But perfect your idleness. Make it mindful. 9. Be aware that you are breathing. 10. Wherever you are, at any moment, try to find something beautiful. A face, a line out of a poem, the clouds out of a window, some graffiti, a wind farm. Beauty cleans the mind. 11. Hate is a pointless emotion to have inside you. It is like eating a scorpion to punish it for stinging you. 12. Go for a run. Then do some yoga. 13. Shower before noon. 14. Look at the sky. Remind yourself of the cosmos. Seek vastness at every opportunity, in order to see the smallness of yourself. 15. Be kind. 16. Understand that thoughts are thoughts. If they are unreasonable, reason with them, even if you have no reason left. You are the observer of your mind, not its victim. 17. Do not watch TV aimlessly. Do not go on social media aimlessly. Always be aware of what you are doing and why you are doing it. Don’t value TV less. Value it more. Then you will watch it less. Unchecked distractions will lead you to distraction. 18. Sit down. Lie down. Be still. Do nothing. Observe. Listen to your mind. Let it do what it does without judging it. Let it go, like Snow Queen in Frozen. 19. Don’t’ worry about things that probably won’t happen. 20. Look at trees. Be near trees. Plant trees. (Trees are great.) 21. Listen to that yoga instructor on YouTube, and “walk as if you are kissing the earth with your feet”. 22. Live. Love. Let go. The three Ls. 23. Alcohol maths. Wine multiplies itself by itself. The more you have, the more you are likely to have. And if it is hard to stop at one glass, it will be impossible at three. Addition is multiplication. 24. Beware of the gap. The gap between where you are and where you want to be. Simply thinking of the gap widens it. And you end up falling through. 25. Read a book without thinking about finishing it. Just read it. Enjoy every word, sentence, and paragraph. Don’t wish for it to end, or for it to never end. 26. No drug in the universe will make you feel better, at the deepest level, than being kind to other people. 27. Listen to what Hamlet – literature’s most famous depressive – told Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” 28. If someone loves you, let them. Believe in that love. Live for them, even when you feel there is no point. 29. You don’t need the world to understand you. It’s fine. Some people will never really understand things they haven’t experienced. Some will. Be grateful. 30. Jules Verne wrote of the “Living Infinite”. This is the world of love and emotion that is like a “sea”. If we can submerge ourselves in it, we find infinity in ourselves, and the space we need to survive. 31. Three in the morning is never the time to try and sort out your life. 32. Remember that there is nothing weird about you. You are just a human, and everything you do and feel is a natural thing, because we are natural animals. You are nature. You are a hominid ape. You are in the world and the world is in you. Everything connects. 33. Don’t believe in good or bad, or winning and losing, or victory and defeat, or ups and down. At your lowest and your highest, whether you are happy or despairing or calm or angry, there is a kernel of you that stays the same. That is the you that matters.

Any time you make a bet with the best of it, where the odds are in your favor, you have earned something on that bet, whether you actually win or lose the bet. By the same token, when you make a bet with the worst of it, where the odds are not in your favor, you have lost something, whether you actually win or lose the bet. —David Sklansky, The Theory of Poker

You and everything! Everything and everyone can wait, As long as you are with me it is never late, For it is the Summer flowers that ought to worry, Because winter always seems to arrive in a hurry, But when you are beside me, who cares whether it is summer or winter, For we can create anything as long as we are together, So let the Sun rise Irma, and let it set, let the Moon shine and disappear, Because in your presence anything can reappear, Let it be night forever or a day that never ends, Because around you and for you everything without any hesitation bends, Let the world incriminate me for my belief, As long as you love me, I need not know or feel any other form of relief, Let the world pray to the Gods or who cares if it is a Godless world, Because in my universe there is a Goddess who creates for me a truly God fearing world, So, let everything end, or let everything begin, For when I am with you, I care not, whether I lose or win!

You and I have one real rule, Fay-whether you win or lose, you want to be able to say, 'Good game! Let's play again!

It's not important whether you lose or win, what is that you participate and play, one fine day your experience will make you win.

God is fighting your battles, whether you know it or not. When He allows you to go through a battle, it is because He knows you will win it. Still, God knows that should you lose a battle; you will learn from it.

Many times people confuse winning and losing,” Wexner says. “Jeffrey has the unusual quality of knowing when he is winning. Whether in conversations or negotiations, he always stands back and lets the other person determine the style and manner of the conversation or negotiation. And then he responds in their style. Jeffrey sees it in chivalrous terms. He does not pick a fight, but if there is a fight, he will let you choose your weapon.

Don’t believe in good or bad, or winning and losing, or victory and defeat, or up and down. At your lowest and at your highest, whether you are happy or despairing or calm or angry, there is a kernel of you that stays the same. That is the you that matters.

Can you be totally intrinsically motivated? “Not necessarily, it’s not always black and white,” says Brad Feld, partner at the Boulder, Colorado-based venture capital firm Foundry Group. I consider Brad a good friend and an expert at understanding the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. I met Brad through a good friend, Bing Gordon, the founder of EA Sports, and we quickly became friends. As he explains, “People fall along a continuum.” Brad uses tennis star Rafael Nadal as an example. He sees Nadal as having a blend of both extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. Nadal clearly likes to win. He likes the limelight and the attention he gets. “Yet . . . Nadal, after he loses a match, he’s a very gracious loser, acknowledging that the other guy played better and did an awesome job,” Brad explained to me. Nadal recharges his battery by heading off to the beach, and then he is back in training for the next tournament. His daily training regime includes four hours of playing tennis on court, two and a half hours in the gym, and a strict stretching routine. He’s continued this training whether he is ranked at number one, five, or seven in the world. It’s for him, not for the ranking. Brad also believes something I’ve really taken to heart—that one person can’t truly motivate another person, a concept especially important in business when you manage people. “I can’t motivate another person, but [I can] create a context in which they are motivated, and part of being a leader is to understand what motivates other people,” explained Brad. “So if I’m the leader of an organization that you’re a part of, I have to understand what motivates you. Then I can create a context in which to motivate you. Most people struggle to understand how somebody else is motivated because they do it based on what motivates them.” Brad’s words ring true: While my own inspiration has come from various people, none of them actually motivated me. When I was extrinsically motivated, it was based largely on what others thought about me. My inner desire to win was based on extrinsic rewards. Only I had the power to change that.

God is fighting your battles, whether you know it or not. When He allows you to go through a battle, it is because He knows you will win it. Still, God knows that should you lose a battle, you will learn from it.