An addiction to winning.

Florida had another mass shooting.
An angry gamer just shot last years winner, and some other gamers.
Why?
Why!!!

We, in the USA, have created a world in which it is more important for our children to WIN, to be WINNERS, than it is for them to be happy, healthy, and comfortable in their own skins.
We have fathers that push their kids to play football, forget about that sissy brain injury stuff, "be a real man".
And sons, raised by those same fathers, not only buy into the idea of risking their brains, their future, for high school sports and winning, but then turn around and push their own sons in the very same way.
Because, Football players are winners.
No one brags about losing while playing football.
No one brags about losing at any team sport.
Because, currently, team sports are all about beating someone else's butt.

It is possible to play individual sports competing only against yourself, but then we wouldn't have all these competition and Olympics and events if it wasn't still about beating someone else's butt.

Sports are not the only thing that we in the USA enjoy competing in.  We compete in Music, Acting, Dancing, Painting, Cooking, even eating.

But our big competition is the game of life--and the winners are announced by Forbes once a year.
Money is the big competition.
Are you smart enough, hard enough, greedy enough to win at life?

Small towns have their own variation of it, since few of them can compete with the big dogs.  They have the biggest farm, biggest house, nicest car, name on most city buildings.  Drive through most places and you can name their biggest winners just riding though the town.

A wealthy person once told me that she didn't think that wealthy people should be taxed as much, so they can give to their favorite charities and the high taxes decrease the amount they can give.
All I could say was that poor people want to give to their favorite charities also---even if it won't be enough to get their name on the building.  To her, I obviously wasn't even supposed to be playing her game.

Am I angry because I'm not rich?
No.
I am angry because I'm discounted for not being rich.
Am I angry because I'm not a winner?
What a ridiculous concept.
What even is a "winner".

Definition of winner

: one that wins: such as

a : one that is successful especially through praiseworthy ability and hard work

b : a victor especially in games and sports

c : one that wins admiration

d : a shot in a court game that is not returned and that scores for the player making it.

But the idea that "winning" is actually an addiction, that was a recent insight.

Addiction may involve the use of substances such as alcohol, inhalants , opioids , cocaine , nicotine , and others, or behaviors such as gambling; there is scientific evidence that the addictive substances and behaviors share a key neurobiological feature—they intensely activate brain pathways of reward and reinforcement, many of which involve the neurotransmitter dopamine . Both substance use disorders and gambling behaviors have an increased likelihood of being accompanied by mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety or other pre-existing problems. "activate brain pathways of reward and reinforcement" Nothing on earth does that like winning does it for some people. Me, I'm more prone to wine and chocolate, but mostly because I don't like the feeling that I made someone else feel like a loser. I've felt like a loser. When we tell someone to "get back on the horse, don't wait" they are basically telling them to not let that loser feeling turn into an aversion you can't shake. When we compete with others, we are agreeing to be judged according to someone else's standards and then placed into categories according to those doing the judging's judgement regarding those other people's rules. Every time I see a parent whack their kid in the back of the head when he or she misses a ball, give them the evil eye when they don't even place, or tell them "maybe this sport just isn't for you" when it was obvious they had fun, they just were average; I want to scream "Leave them alone" "This isn't even about you" But it is, because now that they are too old to win at their sport, they can only win if their offspring is winning. Did you know there is a gene for grip strength?, for being a warrior vs being a strategist? How about for fast twitch muscle fiber? How about for perfect pitch, academic achievement, reaction time and episodic memory. All of those exist, but those without them are not losers, they have their own genes and those genes helped them to survive just like the others did. The fast twitch muscle fiber is common in elite athletes, but unless both parents are homozygous for it, the kids are not that likely to get it too. And, a gene does not mean that a kid will not prefer reading too sports. AND, why do we place so much importance on sports?!? Because we like winners. When you have kids getting ready for college, the high school is all about getting their athletes to college, they want to get those good students that competed in debate and competed in science fair and tech and computer all in the colleges. But what about the students that just made consistently good grades, went through school basically invisible. Are they losers? Have they already been determined to be losers, NOT winners based on nothing more than they didn't compete. We have millions of things created by barely known people and then mass produced by totally anonymous people. Does that mean the woman that sewed my favorite blue jeans is a loser? How about all those stunt doubles in the movies, most of us not only wouldn't recognize their faces, we wouldn't recognize their name, because they are listed in fine print at the end of the credits. Those movies would not be the same without them. Are they losers? We have people like Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy, both are as famous as can be, they were evil incarnate, the fodder of multiple books and movies and copy cats. ARE THEY WINNERS? I think I would remove all references to winning from childrens' lives. We talk about competition and winning like it is just part of life, but is it really? Or did we just make it part of life. If one child loves playing ball and one loves painting, aren't both having a great time. If one child runs fast and one child runs slow, aren't they both getting their exercise? If one child remembers everything they see and one learns to categorize everything so he/she can remember, aren't they both learning? Are we so tribal, so focused on war, so determined to not create a world better than our hunter/gatherer ancestors, that we can't learn to value everyone for being who they are? Most of us like winning an occasional game of checkers or a ribbon for our jelly at the county fair, a little recognition of doing a good job, but can we not treat those that didn't win like losers? And we do make people feel bad for not being the best. Pretty soon, enough years of being treated like an extra in your own life will cause the person to start feeling pretty replaceable, unimportant, worthless. It is my theory, and I have some good but anecdotal evidence, that addictions are are things we start for the purpose of coping, and then continue because they make us feel like we are better. Sometimes, they make us feel like we are better when we are really getting worse. Sometimes, others can see what is really happening better than we can. And just like the alcoholic blames other people for his own inability to keep drinking AND maintain his work standards and family duties and interpersonal relationships, the "Winner" blames others every time he/she does not win, it is never the fault of the "winner" because "winners" are always the best. Their have been plenty of people addicted to winning. When I was a kid, their were neighbors always trying to keep up with the Jones', but our Jones' were not named Jones. When a fancier car or mailbox or sofa appeared at the home of the Jones's not named Jones, the others in the neighborhood would suddenly start having similar cars or mailboxes or furniture store vans appear. Amazingly, there were also those that didn't even try to compete, usually older, perhaps wiser, or maybe they had already seen that particular cycle come through too many times. We currently have a President with an addiction to winning. Because he routinely refers to himself as a winner and everyone who disagrees with him is a loser. He is older, but apparently he is also hooked through the nose, as they used to say about those old coke addicts. Perhaps it is time to examine our motives for continuous one-upmanship. Am I trying to be the best of the best of the best? Am I trying to be better than those around me? Am I trying to be better than I used to be? That isn't a terrible goal as long as I'm being honest about who I'm competing with. Am I trying to be good? Good. No comparatives. No competition with anyone else. But such a hard goal. Hard for toddlers and hard for teens, hard for parents and hard for old codgers. Today, I'm going to be a good person, feel free to join me. No winners will be announced tonight. It will be goodness for goodness' sake.