To this day, I dislike playing table games. Mostly, I think it’s because people take them too seriously. As a boy, I stayed for about six weeks with my Great Aunt Sally, who lived in a big Eastern city. Aunt Sally liked to play games, but she also liked to win! My aversion to table games came when I beat her in Monopoly. Aunt Sally said it was “disrespectful” to beat an adult and she sent me straight to bed early! I’ve always been thankful that she wasn’t my mother.
While American culture is centered on the idea of winning, many mental health problems stem from not knowing how to lose. I remember being impressed with the graciousness with which George and Barbara Bush transferred the White House to Bill and Hillary Clinton. I still long for those days! It almost seemed like Republicans and Democrats were friends –and that’s because, they were!
In order to function with the freedom and tranquility necessary for good mental health we need to know how to accept losses and failures as if they are part of the “weather of life” and just keep on going! Jesus saw this principle first and gave it to us this way: “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 16:25). Just keep doing the right thing; every follower of Christ is a winner, anyway you look at it. It is possible to use up all of your energy just trying to hold on to something. People who know how to accept loss and failure are free to act! You cannot really beat people who know how to lose --there’s nothing to take from them. Have you ever noticed that many older people are easy to be with? It’s because they have had adequate experience with losses --they know the weather changes! That in itself makes them the gentle, helpful people that many of them are. The simple word “humility” could save us all a bushel of distress. It could even be good for the country.