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Show Uncommon Sense JOHN BLAKE II o- a UE A GOOO LOSER IF WE all liked to lose, this would be a shiftless and an ambltlonless life. It Is natural to want to win In any competition, business or athletic. Any self-respecting man would like to feel that he can outstrip the other fellow In any race he enters. He feels chagrined when he loses. Hut If he amounts to anything he does not show It. To whine, to lose your temper,, to Invent excuses, to show Jealousy If you lose, is poor sportsmanship and poor Judgment. You may feel badly because you have lost, and you ought to, but remember re-member that you, and no one else, are responsible. For if the competition was one In which you had no chance of winning you shouldn't have entered It. If you did have a chance, it wus your fault that you did not Improve It. T.e a good loser, therefore, and generous gen-erous to your opponent. But don't lose too often. Don't be so little concerned about losing that you never try to win. Don't feel that It makes no differ ence how the isce goes. When it Is over have a quiet little conversation with yourself, and give general Instructions In-structions not to let the same thing hnppen There Is such i thing as being so good a loser that you like to lose. And there are no competitions run off In this world which you can afford to enter merely for the pleasure of letting some other man win. You are perfectly Justified In feeling feel-ing bad when you huve lost. You are Justified In taking yourself Into a corner for a lecture on the folly of losing. The continual loser will In the end have to part with his self-respect and his courage, and become a mere cumberer of the earth. Try to win as hard as you can. If you lose next time make up your mind thnt you will win the next. Determine De-termine that you will win oftener than you lose and that you will win as nonrly 100 per cent ns possible. Then when you do lose, you can bear It with a better grace, for you will know that such a thing Is not going to hnppen very frequently. (Copyright by John Blake.) |
