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Aug. 4, 2005 Who are the winners of the world? Certainly one has to ponder the question for a few moments. How do we measure the term, “winner?” Is it defined by net financial worth? I think that idea has been proven wrong many times over. Money doesn’t make you a winner. Being the first across the finish line? That makes you a winner, but only for a moment. Finding an ideology that suits your weather? I don’t think so. Discovering that Marxism is your cup a tea or thinking you have found freedom in democracy are not necessarily winning events. Again, they are tenuous at best. Once you discover all the complexities and contradictions in your new ideology, winning is not a factor. In fact, you may find less freedom and free will than you originally anticipated. You just might discover you are in “Weber’s” cage. Freedom is only as big as the cage you’re living in. Are you a winner for thinking that you have stepped beyond the chains of death? You have found religion therefore you are no longer responsible for your future in this world? Do you believe that because you have discovered life after life that what happens today is not important? If so, you are misleading yourself. You are fooling yourself in thinking that your new morality is the correct one. It is no different for atheism. If you have had an epiphany on an intellectual level telling you there is no God therefore there is no need to live within the parameters of cultural control, you’re wrong also. Winning, in my mind, consists of mental awareness that you have overcome your self-inflicted wounds. It is the idea that you are someone whether recognized early in life or your waning years. Winning is overcoming the weaknesses and illnesses of the body. The young woman that overcomes cervical cancer and the old man, who overcomes prostrate cancer, are examples of winning. The shy student, who becomes a public speaker and a CEO, is a winner. The ex-con, who actually is rehabilitated and finds a job somewhere as a mechanic and successfully raises a family is a winner. Winning is self-actualizing. Discovering who you can be, who you want to be, and overcoming obstacles to actually become that individual, is winning. Pure wealth, pure fondness for oneself, or pure radicalism, is not self-actualization. They are only pebbles to becoming a whole person. Are you a winner? Not many in this life can say they have won. Perhaps they have won a battle, but they have not won the war. Very few can say they have truly self-actualized. That is, few can say they have reached that point in their life where they can stand up and declare, “I have won all the marbles.”
Hence, if you don’t think of yourself as a winner, keep trying. Contrarily, if you believe you are a winner, perhaps reevaluate and keep finding things within you that you can improve upon. You will someday become a true winner.
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