Winning isn’t Everything

Genetically, you could assert we were produced to ‘win’. Ever since we raced as sperm to fertilise an egg, getting there ‘first’ was very important. In Phuket, like all places around the world, there are ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ and a hybrid of both, populating the roads, beach clubs, roadside and soi bars, shopping malls, airport, restaurants, office buildings and heritage sites. The nature of a win or loss is very much dependent on the perspective applied to any given situation or context.

With Phuket’s development currently set on ‘Go Fast’, but with infrastructure and supporting amenities struggling to catch up, it takes some mental discipline not to get too caught up in the ‘go faster means winning’ mindset that some succumb to. It seems ‘every second counts’ on a highway, yet when exiting the vehicle, a leisurely stroll, constant checking of the smartphone and an immediate inability to recollect why driving ‘there’ so fast was important subsumes the original wish to win. Am I a winner if I drive my electric vehicle (with special chrome wrap) as fast as I can, tailgating as many cars as possible pointlessly as I approach the next set of red traffic lights?

Do the ‘winners’ send their kids to the most expensive private international schools or just not have any kids at all? Are they ‘winning’ the race to increase the gap between the elite and others, the haves and have-nots? Do they care, given whatever the social outcome, that their children will more likely on average receive a good education? Some might say that an international school with the fanciest building, the largest sports pitches, the most connections to overseas ‘academies’ and with the most expensive fees is the ‘winner’. Others might believe that the schools focusing on kindness, creating a better society and celebrating the strengths of students are the true winners. Yet others might dismiss this as utopian fantasy.

Winning is very difficult to determine in the property market. Owning the largest, most spectacularly appointed gazillion bedroom en suite villa on an illegally sloped hillside on illegal land, doesn’t seem like ‘winning’ to me but I am not neutral on this topic. Buying 20 properties on leasehold and illegally renting them out on booking applications for short term gain but then suffering tax fines and difficulty in selling also feels more like overall ‘losing’ than ‘winning’. Only renting and never buying is a populist ideology currently followed by many as a stick-it-to-the-man style financial rebellion, thereby assisting landlords retain and increase their asset holdings and their grip and power on decisions and influence of society.

Losing in our society is often considered a ‘shame’ and in some cases a ‘humiliation’. When I used to struggle to win in a Silver/Gold Padel tournament, winning was seen as an achievement. After I mastered that level, when I won I was told I was not in the right place and needed to be in a higher category where I would definitely be beaten ‘good and proper’. After I mastered that level, annoyance at the upstart festered in some, and winning was harder to celebrate because it was inevitably at the expense of some long-termers. Winners can then be isolated or despised until they are knocked off their perch. I remember in one match I played with a very tall and athletic player who just had no clue about motion, ball-hitting, positioning or strategy. More experienced players targeted him so they could win, but by virtue of doing so they built up his defence tactics rapidly until such time as he could turn his robust defence into attack. Picking on losers is only a short term strategy for a short term ‘win’, but over the long term, it can seriously backfire. An alternative is to train and support the so-called ‘losers’ so that as they advance, they remember the assistance you gave freely and may return it in kind at a time of need.

I thought I was ‘winning’ in some respects by being married, having a family and investing what I considered to be as much positive energy as I could muster into that unit. However, like many others in the world, my marriage failed and all of a sudden I didn’t feel like I was ‘winning’ in the family department. After some difficult circumspection and reconciliation of past events, my mind has activated thoughts of gratitude for the fact my kids are still alive and currently healthy, that I did enjoy some parts of my marriage and can at least keep those memories locked up safe in a compartment which I will try to avoid being polluted by acrimony and resentment. Now I believe ‘winning’ is actually walking away from anything that is toxic, debilitating and unlikely to provide any security or comfort in old age. We are born alone, and we die alone, so who is with us in between is critically important for us to get something intangibly good from our lives. We must also, if we have children, present to them a good relationship, and not a dysfunctional one, so that they may learn how to secure and maintain good relationships for themselves. Divorcees, single parents and those trying to rescue failing relationships are not… ‘losers’ or ‘winners’, they are just doing their best in the circumstances.

I was taught, initially, in my legal studies, that ‘winning’ was of utmost importance or at least achieving the best result for a client was. However, what if the client actually was in the wrong, didn’t deserve to win anything and is generally a parasite on society? Best not to represent such persons as clients, and therefore avoid such dilemmas. Settling disputes, not deliberately prolonging them longer than necessary is also a way of changing the goalposts of winning and losing.

The next time you cheer when a UFC fighter chokes-out an opponent, or you take comfort that it wasn’t you that was sitting by the roadside with the ambulance after a tragic road accident, or you make some social judgment on someone who is apparently having a hard time or in some form of emotional turmoil, give some thought to the concepts of ‘winning’ and ‘losing’ and on what plane of ascendancy you are operating on. What battles did the losing opponent overcome to get to the final fight, how much care did the innocent party in the road accident take, are you ever likely to be humbled by the same circumstance befallen upon another person you are making a distanced judgment upon?

By Desmond Hughes, Senior Partner of Hughes Krupica

Hughes Krupica is a law firm which specialises in Real Estate; Construction; Hospitality; Corporate; Commercial; Tech; Dispute Resolution; and Litigation, operating from Phuket, servicing clients in relation to their business activities in Thailand and in other regions of Asia.