Learning From Defeat

We experience a lot of things that seem like insignificant to our life. These things are those that we don’t usually appreciate. One clear example is defeat. Who on earth would want to experience failure or defeat? If there is such a thing as a genie, I don’t think there is someone who would not wish to have other wonderful things other than defeat.

I don’t know if there are those who just wanted to lose in everything, all the time. Well, I don’t. I want to succeed. I would never pray to experience failure in my life. Everyone wants to succeed. Everyone wants to win all the time. That is the reason we strive hard to get the success we crave to have.

A few months ago, I experienced not just one defeat, but two. Worst thing, both happened in one day. I joined a speech contest in the division level. While I was battling the nerve-wracking experience on stage, delivering a speech in front of a big audience, I was also praying that I would win for the BOD position I ran for during the coop election.

It took me days, or even weeks trying to figure out the reasons of having to experience those defeats. It even came to a point of having a little “LQ” with God. I stopped praying after that day. I thought that God doesn’t hear my prayer. I actually prayed, but everything was all about asking questions regarding the reasons for my recent defeat. “You promised in the Bible ask and you shall be given. So, I asked. It was very specific. I wanted to win, but you didn’t let me win,” I sometimes prayed. I felt like I was ready enough to be a BOD of our coop. I even had so many plans and projects if I’d win. I knew I would be a good contribution to the BOD team. After the speech contest, I felt like I was better than some of the contestants and that I had a chance of being at least on the third place.

Either way, my votes were not good enough to claim my victory. To say I was disappointed was perhaps an understatement. After spending sleepless nights practicing my piece and after what I have contributed to the coop for free, I felt like I don’t deserve to lose.

It took me months to realize the lesson behind those failures. The feelings I had beforehand were perhaps signs of arrogance. If I had won the contest, perhaps I would feel very overconfident about myself that my head would inflate for being the champion speaker in the division. If I had won the election, perhaps I would start to feel like some kind of a superman who could solve everything in our coop. Humility, this is the very important lesson I have learned from my defeat. Perhaps it’s telling me: “Not now. You’re not ready yet.”

Original work from Learning From Defeat