how to beat the ones who outdrew you

We are told from a very young age that we are all equal, that we all are unique and special just the way we are. That much, in my opinion, is true. Regardless of race, class, creed, gender, preference, or physical/ mental ability, we ALL have something amazing that we can offer this world and we all have the potential to reach our highest goals. That, I will always believe.

But it seems to me that sometimes that idea is taken too far. We’re told that we are all winners all the time. In school, they do away with competition because losing hurts kids too much.

The part they forget to mention is that in the REAL world, that’s not the way it is. There is all sorts of injustice and inequality and ignorance and prejudice and competition, as horrible as all of those things are. It's just a fact. And we all have to get hurt at some point. We all have to lose sometimes. That is the way life works.

They forget to mention that.

But I believe that for every time you lose, there will be another two times when you come out on top. And for every time some idiot says some twisted, bigoted, moronic cliche, there will be two more warm-hearted, kind people who think the world of you. There’s always a silver lining, but we have to understand that everyone has to weather a few storms.

In fact, the more storms we weather, the easier the storms get. We learn how to handle loss and rejection and pain and suffering and all those little guilty feelings that can really drag a person down. If they taught us that we have to learn to handle all the bad stuff, that would really be much more beneficial than just making us think that the world is perfect and that we are all perfect and that nothing will ever go wrong.

Mind you, EVERY person has the potential to be whatever they want to be and to love whomever they want to love, and to go wherever they want to go, and NOBODY and NOTHING can hold you back if you want something enough. You just have to remember that just because you dream it doesn't mean it will pop up out of nowhere and get handed to you on a silver platter.

We have to work, and sweat, and bleed, and cry to achieve the things that we dream of. And the beauty of that is that once we get there, we can appreciate it even more.  

We must try to remember that life is not only full of love, joy, passion, excitement, success, beauty, music, and friendship, but also that life should be- must be- full as well with sorrow, tears, grief, guilt, hate, sadness, mediocrity, disappointment, loss, failure, silence, illness, a little bit of loneliness, and a whole lot of pain.

It is all we can do to take these negative things and turn them into something worth remembering.