PRISONER EXPRESS

I suppose each person on this earth can identify by definition or through experience a winner and a loser.

It's amazing, beautiful, and even frightening how our actions affect others. If we see drugs in our communities- sure, we win the profit margin. However, the parents suffer; the children suffer. Who is winning then? Sure I could believe, "they are going to do it anyway, so I might as well be the one to make the money." The key word, however, is one.

Then again, I could donate food to the hungry, to the poor, which would feed and clothe the children whose parents I sold drugs too. I doubt I'd do that 'cause I'd lose my profit, and that was the point anyway.

I'm sure I won't get caught, but it's bound to happen. Right now I'm winning and that's all the matters. Later, when I do get caught, we all lose more than the gain. My children will be fatherless, my wife without her husband; guess I lost what I was winning for.

It seems this some pattern manifests itself in many instances, whether on a greater or lesser scale. I could compare fuel consumption to environment, or economy to labor yet still and other argument would present itself, and there would have to be a winner and loser to that also.

As I reflect, I see that even as a child the idealism and age old adage, "for every winner, there is a loser," was instilled. And when I lost I felt bad, or not as good as the winner. Then, when I won, I did it to feel better than the losers. Yeah, I understand life is not fair or treats everyone equally, and I understand that the thrill of victory and accomplishment. However, what goes beyond my understanding and transcends towards truth; there is more to life than competition.

The true athlete finds victory in his personal best, overcoming oneself and the thrill of performance, taking sport to the level of art. I mean that's what makes the great so great right? They do what not even they could do themselves.

Winning is overcoming and attaining new heights. Losing is the procurement at the detriment of others.