Living victoriously after defeat

Are you at that place in your life where you seem not to be able to continue with living due to the feeling that you have been defeated in one way or the other? If you are into that kind of defeatist captivity, it is not the fellow or issue that defeated you that is […]

Are you at that place in your life where you seem not to be able to continue with living due to the feeling that you have been defeated in one way or the other? If you are into that kind of defeatist captivity, it is not the fellow or issue that defeated you that is to blame, it is you, because you gave in to it.

It is never possible that as a man, it would be win, win always. If that is the case, it means not even one defeat, several of them are bound to occur somewhere along the way in our lives, because man’s imperfection made it so.

Life is so ironic that we cannot continue to have a win, win situation in our lives always. There are moments when boredom sets in,  one feels like everything in life is basically meaningless and pointless. That is a defeat one has suffered there. The mere fact that one was not creative and unresourceful enough to allow boredom to creep in like a thief entering through the window shows defeat cannot be tamed and permanently kept at bay.

At the other flip, comfortable feeling envelopes man and he again begins to feel being  on top of the world. At another turn, the feeling of being deserted sets in and the person would wish life should just come to an end, probably, one is find it difficult to contain the effect of such ‘defeat’.

Like it was illustrated above,defeat could come in various ways, it could be issues with friends, kids, family problems, illness, financial challenges in our lives. It really can be traumatising if one is confronted with any of these challenges and there is just no outlet or means to surmount or overcome the challenge. It gets really worse, when for instance, it is something insignificant, but it’s timing makes it stressful and overwhelming. Let’s say one is face to face with a deadline over a matter that can never be given another chance. Probably a public holiday has blocked the means of meeting the end, say a foreign medical trip, whose visa result is ready for collection on a Monday that is public holiday and Tuesday is the flight day. In fact, it could me more than a feeling of defeat, it is now between life and death. And all we get is the feeling that life is baseless.

Defeat in our lives does not necessarily mean the end of our world. The real defeat is when we fail to overcome whatever challenges that come our way , challenges that could either be avoided or ably handled with less stress.

One mistake we make is losing hope after being defeated, which opens a way of life of negativity. It is a kind of self-destruct instincts. Nobody ever enjoys losing, as losing is never a fun to behold, but when it happens,  there is nothing anyone can do to reverse it.

Rather than allowing defeats to demoralize and weigh you and everything around you down, turn it around to your advantage. First, ask yourself the reason why in the first place you faced a challenge and instead of winning it, you fell flat. Ask yourself why, for you might unearth the cause of your defeat at the very beginning of your problem.  Do a thorough analysis of the circumstances that led to your defeat. Look at the place, issues, people involved and the roles played by them and other  sundry matters that may worth the while. After that, you are likely to locate the fault probably with the people or the state of affairs generally.

So, you can see that somehow, defeats are somewhat a blessing in disguise and a wake-up call. Defeats make us learn more about ourselves and weak points. It drives the brave and not the weak man to break new grounds.

“I learn more from my defeats than my victories, which is a very humble and unique way of learning about your mistakes and yourself,” says Bello Awal, a media consultant. “We must understand that not only does defeat keep us humble, it also forces us to do better next time.”

Feeling defeated can be a temporary setback, however, giving up is what makes it permanent. Famous martial art exponent Bruce Lee once said “defeat is a state of mind; no one is ever defeated until defeat has been accepted as reality. To me, defeat in anything is merely temporary and its punishment is but an urge for me to greater effort to achieve my goal. Defeat simply tells me that something is wrong in my doing, it’s a path leading to success and truth.”

“Defeat is not necessarily a bad thing, things happen to us in life to teach us lessons. Learning to accept defeat when we know we can do nothing to change the situation is the best remedy we can offer ourselves. Accept that things are the way they are, and that eventually things will work out for the better, defeat should be looked at as a lesson learned,” says Adedoyin Boderin, a sociologist in Zaria.

Defeat is never a curse as life is all about winning some and losing others. Life is made out of situations when someone decides to either be temporarily defeated or permanently destroyed.

It is easy to have a positive attitude when things are going well and preapare for the unexpected, because with that defeat cannot weigh you down heavily. However, there are times when our attitude and outlook are put to test by being defeated and then the real question props up. Can we surpass the test of being defeated? You and only you can live victoriously over defeat in your life.