playing to not lose
This past weekend some friends and I got together for our regular monthly card game. It’s a friendly low stakes game that gives us a chance to catch up with each other since we don’t work together anymore. I lost a little bit of money - not a great deal, but the last few times I have lost money. Looking back, I can clearly see the pattern of how I am playing - I don’t play to win, I play to not lose. There’s a huge difference.
Taking that to the next level, I’ve realized that’s how I’ve been living my life too - I’ve been playing it to not lose, not playing it win. That turns out to be a real problem in terms of universal law. Simply stated, the Law of Attraction says that whatever you hold in your thoughts will manifest in your life. By holding thoughts of not losing, I attract losing, however you choose to define it. I’ve noticed that when I play not to lose, I wind up doing the very things that hold me back - failing to finish the actions that would put me where I want to be, and doing those things that push me in the wrong direction, or doing them at the wrong time.
Focusing on not losing has caused me to act in a manner that consistently brings to me the very things I don’t want. It’s time to change that. And I’m not just talking about cards, I’m talking about life. It’s time I stopped focusing on what I don’t want, and start focusing on what I do want. I have noticed that a lot of people around me, and in this world, don’t know what they want, but they can tell you emphatically what they don’t want, and oftentimes those things they don’t want are in their lives. I see now that’s the result of wrong focus, which causes wrong action.
I know I talk a lot about getting my act together, how I’m going to make changes, and the like. Those of you who don’t know me personally don’t get to see the changes that get made on a day to day basis, don’t get to see the entire me, just the thoughts I find time to scribble here from time to time. Perhaps at some point I’ll try to write about more than whatever happens to be foremost in my thoughts at the moment, so you can better grasp what I’m like in everyday life. True knowledge and understanding come from familiarity. Anyway, I must go on with my day, so until next time, adieu.
June 9th, 2008 at 11:53 am
I’ve never thought about this before now but there is a big difference between trying not to lose and trying to win. When you’ve dealt with a lot of disappointment and loss, it’s so easy to slip into trying not to lose. It feels like the path of least resistance. It feels easier to try to not lose than it is to try to win, a feeling that in itself is self-defeating for all it communicates about one’s self-worth and one’s sense of no entitlement to love, relationships, the right job, and so on.