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After, say, 50, or in retirement, does it make sense to consider yourself and others winners or losers in life?
Question bothers me.
What is a loser, anyway? Someone who has never done anything much?
Drug addict? Or someone, like myself, who has not achieved their life goals and expectations
Such as marriage, or admirable LTR, career job satisfaction? I have not achieved that, having failed to get really good well paying jobs--- and love. Only lost love.
Some say loners and weirdos are losers (unfairly) and some
say if you lost all your money, bankrupt. Not to mention criminal types.
What makes you a winner? Big success, nice family?
This is bound and determined by culture because western values differ from the poorest nations.
I prefer fortunate and not so fortunate. What if you’re a winner and don’t share your good fortunes with those not so fortunate, what does that make you?
We support my MIL 100 financially. I could take the view that she is preventing us from retiring. That’s a glass half empty. I prefer to be extremely thankful that we have the means, we both love our jobs and it would be awful to live so well while allowing her to live on literally rice and beans.
Comparing yourself to others is not productive. You never know what struggles people have had. I went to college with a guy that did so well he retired at age 50. Things were going great! Then he got divorced and his mother got sick. He paid her medical bills for 12 years. Those costs wiped him out. He is now 62, and gets by on social security and pet sitting. So you never know. Looking at my old friend, is he a "loser?" I don't think so, but to the casual observer he might appear to be so. All you can do is try to be the best person you can be. Life can throw you curve balls.
I don’t know why people have to be thought of as “winners” or losers. I think people who think that way tell me more about themselves, than they do about others.
Life is not a win vs lose competition, unless you make it so.
Everyone loses eventually. I haven't figured out how to be immortal yet.
I have! -- "Jesus said: “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; 26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. ..." (John 11:25-26)
He also had something to say about gaining and losing:
"What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?" (Matt. 16:26)
Very few of us get everything in life we wanted or aspired to. Even those born to great wealth don't always find contentment or trustworthy companionship. To me a loser is, as the saying goes, a person who can tell you the price of everything and the value of nothing.
I have known people over the years who have measured themselves by others, their homes, cars, other possessions. I'd say the only thing that matters is what your true friends and close family ( unless they are just a mess) think and more importantly what you think of yourself. People who are impressed and seek your friendship solely due to your address, car, clothes etc. are not friends and those things do not make you a worthy human being. Having empathy and taking the actions that you have within your means, be it money or time or simply standing up to help others who need it and can not help themselves make you a person worth knowing. I suppose you can call that a winner vs a loser.
Did you help others when you could ( and I do not mean money necessarily) or were you the one who always took help from others but never once said thank you. What are you going to do with what is left of your life to make up for that, give you talent or time to others less fortunate?
Do you see a person of a different economic status, nationality, color, religion, sex or sexual orientation as something less than your self? Well, that one makes you a loser in most peoples books.
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