What Happened To The One Who Lost?

History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon – Napoleon Bonaparte.

These were the great words, of a great man, who is regarded as one of the best war generals of all time. A great leader, and a strategist, who always (in most cases) found a way to defeat his opponent and conquered the land, thus ruling over large parts of Europe in the 19th century.

But what happened to his opponent? Why was Napoleon such a Winner, why couldn’t anyone come close to being the Winner Napoleon was at his peak?

Let alone Napoleon, or Alexander ‘The Great’, who was given the title – The Great, with people recognizing the sheer excellence of Alexander way before the likes of Napoleon arrived. Again, what happened to those Alexander defeated? Why did everyone, who came in his way, had to go through the same fate?

What happened to the loser?

If you think deeply, you would realize the number of Winners we read about is way smaller to those who lost. Did we just discard them because they lost, or did we not pay attention to them because they were not worthy of being recognized?

Most likely the latter, and why not? Seems pretty stupid right, to think of something like that. Why would anyone want to read about the loser? I can’t find a reason to do so other than one – reading about them to learn from their mistakes, but history rarely gives a chance to do that. Let’s table that topic for another day. The topic today is What happened to the one who lost?

Well, the loser didn’t lose because he was bad. The loser lost because his opponent simply had more desire, more hunger and more will to succeed. Because when needed, the Winner put in a lot more effort than the loser did. Some may argue that the Winner was a born genius – fair enough, but did the Winner rest on being a born genius and not do anything to get better at what he already was?

This world has seen enough examples of those who went on to change the world by their work, and desire to be better than everybody else around them. We have seen Winners in sports, academics, arts, science, literature, War etc. that the world today applauds them all for the work they did. At the same time, we must also spare a minute to those who also tried but failed at the same time these marvels rose from the ground, and engraved their names in the history books, only to learn what NOT to do, and what we must do.

The loser, simply didn’t do enough to compete and be better. The loser, simply made excuses for his failure and for not working. The loser, simply didn’t do enough to get the best out of himself. He just stood there while the others moved on. While the Winner was upgrading himself, the loser remained constant, and the world around him evolved and became far better than he ever thought it will be, or maybe he never thought.

The loser, simply accepted mediocrity and became a part of the mob, who stood in front of a bronze statue, to applaud and admire an individual, who went above and beyond to prove his worth and raised the bar for everyone else who followed him.