Looking at a loser, the one who tries his best and fails is not a loser at all, in any sense. Trying hard is a big achievement and even failure is an achievement. A loser is the one who achieves nothing at all. That is possible only in one condition, choosing not to try at all. That way, you don’t gain anything at all, not even a failure after fighting well. Hence he’s not a loser who fails after trying because he’s won effort and failure. He who has not tried at all is a loser because he’s gained nothing at all.
It means loser is not the one who fails after trying to succeed but it is the one who lets an entire opportunity pass by him; without giving it a try. The one who has tried, has failed but he has not lost the opportunity in question, as he has availed it. The one who has not tried has lost in the real sense, since he’s lost the opportunity itself. Hence in the deepest sense, to fail is not to lose but not to try at all is to lose. The one who fails is not afraid of taking on a challenge whereas the one who chooses not to engage because of fear of losing is afraid. Hence the one who tries is much stronger than the one who doesn’t do so because of fear of losing.
Real success doesn’t lie in achieving the best possible result in a given situation, it lies in giving it your best, even if you don’t achieve much. You may achieve the minimum but you’re much better than the ones who didn’t try and you’re better than the ones who tried but didn’t give their best, though they may have achieved more than you. When you learn to give your best, you may fail or succeed based on various factors; but the ability to give your best may never fail you. That is what matters the most.
An interesting fact is that when you try and fail, you may gain more than what you may gain if you succeed, in many cases. You’ve failed because there are people who are performing better than you in the same sphere. It motivates you and you try harder. Hence you improve. On the other hand, if you’re the best in a field, you may not have much to gain from there as no one seems to motivate you to try harder. Hence you’re gaining more in the first situation though the outside results may be better in the second situation. For this reason, you should compete with people who’re stronger than you as doing so encourages you to improve yourself so that you may perform like them or better than them.
On the other hand, if you keep competing with people weaker than you; you may not grow much and on the contrary, you may start becoming weaker. Taking an example, suppose you can finish a specific race in 2 minutes. If you run with people who finish it before 2 minutes; this may encourage you and you may try hard to improve.
Hence in a matter of days or weeks, you may end up finishing this race in 1 minute and 55 seconds or less. However, if you choose to run with people who can finish this race in 2 minutes and 15 seconds or more; you may lose instead of gaining. This is because you know that even if you finish it in 2 minutes and 10 seconds, you’re going to win. Hence you may not feel motivated in this case; and you may rather feel relaxed. As a result, your performance may drop though you may win the race every time.
Therefore, you don’t lose as long as you try; and you gain. Hence start meeting new people, assess which ones can be trusted initially and then give them their due chances. You’ll find out that though you may get hurt by some people, you may also gain some good people who can prove assets for life and who you could not have gained, had you not engaged in the practice of trusting people. Don’t bother about the ones who hurt you and move on, as this is a part of the process. You’ll find roses accompanied by thorns, lotuses accompanied by mud and many other things accompanied by unwanted things. Likewise, you’ll almost always find good people hidden among a mixture of many other types of people including bad people.
Just like you select roses and reject thorns; select lotuses and reject mud, select good apples and reject bad ones, select edible part of a banana and reject the peel, select television shows you like and reject the ones you don’t, select food items which taste good and reject the ones which taste bad and you select jobs you like whereas you reject the ones you don’t; learn to select good people and reject bad ones. The only way of doing so effectively is by trying them all.
More you open yourself to people, more you share, more you gain, more you expand, more you learn, more you experience and accordingly; more you grow on various levels. On the other hand, more you shut yourself off and more you stay away from people; more you move away from life, more you contract instead of expanding; and fewer opportunities you get to share, gain, learn and experience. Accordingly, less you grow on various levels. Hence start meeting, testing and trusting people, as you simply can’t choose not to grow, because the ultimate goal of the journey of every soul is to grow more and more. Recognize this goal sooner than later and start working towards achieving it.
Let’s look at some tips which may help during this process. When you meet new people, assess them initially and see if they’re worthy of being given chances. Some people may make you uncomfortable even within 10 minutes of interaction. Avoid them at this stage, as they may be too much to handle for you.
You may also come across some people who may reveal secrets of people in their circles, during the first or second interactions. For example, when you meet one such person for the first time, he may tell you that his friend standing at some distance suffered from a broken marriage as his wife found out about his extramarital affair. This person is not worthy of being trusted, as he’s finding joy in misery of his friend. He’s revealing his friend’s secrets to someone he’s meeting for the first or second time. It means he’s going to do the same to you. Hence he can’t be trusted.
Whenever you interact with someone for the first few times to assess them, ask him about his friends/relatives and observe what he says. If he speaks ill about many of his friends and he mocks many of them; he may not be worthy of being added to your circle. A good person may always speak well about his friends/relatives and he may cover their flaws, especially when talking to someone he’s not friends with. Friends are the ones whom he has chosen himself and with whom he has shared many good as well as bad times. If he can’t speak well about many of them; the problem may not be with his friends and it may be with him. Hence leave him and move on.
Another person may behave very well with people who are superior to him or he benefits through them in some way. However, he may behave badly with people who are below him. It means he’s selfish and he’s worse than even a person who behaves badly with everyone. This is because the second person is honest. Whatever his nature is, he’s expressing it without greed/fear of profit/loss. The first person is greedy, fearful and selfish. He praises the ones who can give him something or who can hurt him whereas he treats those people badly, who can’t give him much or hurt him much. Hence leave him and move on.
Looking at next category; you may meet a person who may speak a lot about himself. He may tell you a lot about his heroic deeds and so many wonderful things that he has achieved by virtue of his amazing personality. He may be so full of himself that there may be no space for you, if you form a relationship with him. Loving yourself is good but overdoing it is bad. If he speaks well about himself and he speaks well about a number of other people, things and situations also; you should give him a chance. However, if he talks about himself most of the time, leave him and move on.
Looking at next category, you may meet a person who may complain about one thing or another, most of the time. It means he has a negative attitude as well as a negative aura. Stay away from him as he may transfer a lot negative energy to you through visible as well as invisible communication. He may discourage you from engaging in most things; by enlisting the disadvantages. It means he may pull you back instead of helping you move forward. Hence leave him and move on.
Likewise, there may be some other types of people who you should avoid; especially during the early stages of treating your habit of lack of trust. Doing so reduces the chances of getting involved with some of the most difficult to deal with people, which is good for you. Your trust levels are already low and the last thing you want is more and more people hurting you. Hence choose good people only, during the first stage. Let’s look at some signs which may help in finding such people.
At any type of happy gathering, if you come across a person who is surrounded by many people or friends most of the time, provided he is not a celebrity, a very rich person or other such person who attracts people by virtue of something material he possess and not by virtue of his qualities, this may be the person you are looking for. This is due to the reason that in most cases, only those people are surrounded by many people, who have proven themselves assets. Due to this reason, their friends are happy to have them in their lives and they don’t want to miss any chance of being close to them.
If this person is in a group of 10 people and you don’t know who out of these 10 people; is the one you are looking for, here are some helpful tips. You may be able to observe that among this group of people, there is a person who is the center of attention of most other people in the group. It means that most other people look at this person while saying something, he may do more talking than the others and when he speaks, most people in the group listen carefully and react positively to whatever he says. Moving on, if the average distance of one person from another in this group is 2 feet, you may observe that the two people sitting or standing immediately next to him are maintaining a distance of less or much less than two feet.
This happens because our subconscious minds encourage us to get as close as we can get to people who we really like and respect. It means that people sitting or standing next to him like him a lot. If someone is already being liked a lot by other people, he must have some very good qualities as it is not possible otherwise, in most cases. Now observe if the scene changes and this group or a part of this group scatters. Some members of this group may scatter in ones or twos but this person may still be accompanied by at least one or more than one person.
If you further observe that people who are not a part of this group, are coming to greet and meet this person and they greet him with real smiles of happiness on their faces, you don’t need more proofs. This person is definitely worth giving a chance as a good number of people may not pay attention or respect to a person at a gathering, if such person doesn’t have some very good qualities.
Himanshu Shangari