by veen

This post is inspired by a post on Magic: The Gathering (which I don't play) about losing. I didn't link directly because it's not the best read, too long, and there's a lot of lingo, but I found the parts below particularly interesting and felt the need to share it.

A time ago I spent every Saturday hanging out with friends, and we would always play pool, board games and / or Super Smash Brothers Brawl. I always felt like I was less good in all games, which helped me push myself in a self-loathing attitude. I'm not good enough, I probably won't win. Nevermind me, I'm not important enough.

It was a reflection of my self confidence (which was zero) and only a couple of years ago I realised how unhealthy such an attitude is and how I am worth something. From there I've been building (and still am building) my confidence and I am quite happy with who I am today.

Still, insecurity can creep up on me when I'm dealing with failure. This piece gives that part a name (Bruce). The part of you that wants you to fail, to confirm that you're worth nothing anyway. The part that keeps yourself from winning.

Did you ever know someone who seemed like a born loser? Someone who just couldn't catch a break no matter what they did? Someone who always found a way to end up just short of being the winner? Someone who was cursed with more"bad luck" than anyone who has ever lived?

Yeah me too. His name was Bruce.

People sabotage their own success almost on a daily basis. What you don't believe me? Try these Bruce scenarios on for size:

Did you ever not study for an important test in high school or college and get a big fat F?

Did you ever spend too much money on crap (such as even more Magic cards) when you had bills to pay?

Did you ever stay out late and then go to work dragging ass?

Have you ever played the lottery?

People cheat because of Bruce; because of their need to get caught. People lose at Magic and relationships and life in general because they need to; they need to affirm that they are just no damned good y'all and losing is the best way to show that to the world. Look world! I'm no good! I don't deserve success! I suck and if you stick around for a while I'll prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt!

The question I want to ask you all is: how you deal with failure? How does failing matter to you as a person? How much of your life are you in control of, and are you happy with that?

My most recent "big" failure was that I attempted to sell my Highways map. I had about ten people on niche forums ask me if I was gonna sell it, and got a lot of great feedback on the poster. But when I was done building the webshop and posted it, I got almost zero response on it. First, I took it too personally - what I made was probably shit, I don't deserve succes - but I realised that there are numerous other factors that probably led to this (e.g. people will promise to buy it but not actually buy it, might be too expensive, especially transport, only payment method is through manual transfer).