I Hate Losing
Today we had a second family Christmas Day including my brothers and their families - 14 of us across 4 generations wedged around my parents’ dining table.
It was great.
But I also had to smile at the ludicrously childish nature of my inner emotions when we started playing games.
They were the usual (and mandatory) silly Christmas games - cards, one where you steal each other’s presents, and bingo - and we were playing with 3 kids under 12-years-old.
But nonetheless I could feel a small well of frustration within me whenever I lost. I knew it didn’t matter. I knew it was just a bit of fun. But something inside my head just couldn’t fully relax and be OK with the idea of losing.
I obviously still had a lot of fun and outwardly it would have been impossible to tell (or at least I hope it would!) that there was a little piece of me wincing whenever I lost the game. But it made me smile to myself in a self-reflective, “what is wrong with you?” kind of way to notice the feeling.
As with many traits, the things that show up as “pros” in one walk of life can be “cons” in others, and I think for me an innate sense of competitiveness is one of them. But I’ll take the rough with the smooth on that one!