Much has been written about second place. Phrases are frequently quoted that go on and on about how disappointing it is to be second. Vince Lombardi, for example, the NFL player whose name is on the NFL’s premier trophy, said that he had twice finished second with Green Bay, and that he never wanted to experience that again.
Somewhere I read that no one remembers who came in second, with the only exception being the one who came in second. My father used to say that second places were never good, while I remember my P.E. teacher at Methodist saying that there is no place for a second place finisher.
In two paragraphs, however, I cannot find the absolute in the context of such a relative concept. That is, while it is true that it may be one of the most disappointing experiences, being second could be of success and satisfaction depending on the situation. In fact, in relation to relativity, Einstein said that an hour seducing an attractive girl was like a second, while a second with your hands in a burning fire is like a second.
However, if we take a personal experience, in my first marathon I placed 28,074th and felt I had achieved a small personal victory, simply by reaching the finish line. The following year I shaved a little over half an hour off my time and since I also enjoyed the competition immensely, I couldn’t have been happier when I managed to move up to 24,983rd out of 35,000 marathoners. However, I suppose that whoever came in second, and maybe third or fourth, did not achieve the satisfaction of all the rest of us mortals who ran after his strides, slowly, even if it was 2, 3 or even four hours later.
This matter of winning or losing, of being first or second, is a subject to depend on and therefore, to review one case at a time. Possibly after the three to ten contenders to win a marathon, then you only find thousands of winners despite having all lost the first place. In the case of a zero-sum game, it would seem that there are always losers amidst a single winner, and yet it has a direct bearing on the original objectives, the real possibilities, the flight plan. In fact, I believe that in a marathon as in life, we can all be winners depending on the personal definition and the proposed goals.
In the absolute majority of the dimensions of my life, I have not been the first, and yet, like almost all of us, I feel that I win. Maybe I am the winner in a few games of chess, and maybe too, I can lose level, time, skill, ability, proficiency, effectiveness, even if I win. In a few I have been second and then, in thousands of thousands of other situations I have been among the supposed losers. In relation to billions of people, I may feel I am a winner and in relation to others I may think I am a loser. Many times I have won by losing and even more times I accurately count those occasions when I have won by conceding and backing down.
Winning or losing. It depends.