The Rating

'It is participation that is important,not winning' or something to that effect was quoted by someone famous in the days of yore.But I have often wondered at the lack of insight into the human nature in that statement.It was only a few days back that I had shaken my righteous head at the sprinter who was deprived of her medal since she had tested positive for a banned drug. She had sown drugs into her systems for winning and had reaped the bitter pill of ultimate defeat...such a shame!

I was still shaking my head at the depravity of the people who would do anything to win when I switched on my computer and logged onto Writing.Com. I had uploaded a short story, an entry into a contest, a day before and I was sure to get an average rating of at least 4.0. As I had been receiving  a consistent 4.0 for all my previous articles, (so many of them! that is, if you feel 3 is certainly bigger than 1 and 2 and very much more than 0!), my very 'hard working' brain had already foreseen a Booker Prize in my very near future and was working its way towards a Nobel! With my head lost in the clouds, I clicked on my Portfolio and...THUD!! My very inflated ego received a big shock! A rating of 2.5...dangerously near below average ! What a blow ! A piteous howl sounded in my head..I began my (routine) flashback into all the 'TRAGIC' events of my life, culminating in the current 'TRAGEDY'! For one foolish moment I considered giving up writing!

Miraculously the little grey cells in my brain began firing (in the right direction, thankfully!) and jolted me back to normalcy! I began to realize that this was what I had been doing all along during the latter part of my life...giving up, in the face of slightest of defeats. I could not take failure in my stride.How different was I from the unfortunate athlete??

When I was a child, I could drive myself to victory.But as the wheels of time turned and I grew up, somewhere along the way, I lost the skill to do that! I took refuge in 'wallowing' in self pity every time a so called 'adversity'  arose in front of me.

Realization dawned in the highly imaginative brain of mine that victory and defeat are a state of mind and being happy 'does not mean everything is perfect, it just means that you have decided to see everything beyond the imperfections'. In life, especially in life I should say, winning is not important...it is participation, that is living, in the true sense of the word, that is important.

At least for today I know that there might be some who 'come, see and conquer', but there are many who 'arrive,view, blend and enjoy', and do you know what made me realize all this??The rating of 2.5!!