Winning is an event; Being a winner is a spirit
- Michel de Montaigne
Three people ran a marathon along with hundreds of others. None of them won the race. Does that mean that these three people were losers? Not at all. Each went into the race with different objectives. The first ran the race to test his endurance - he came out better than his expectation. The second wanted to improve on his previous performance, and he did. The third person had never run a marathon - his objective was to complete the race and he did. Each of these three entered the race with different objectives; they all met them, and they were all winners, regardless of who won the medal.
Mark Twain said, it is better to deserve an honor and not have it than to have it and not deserve it. Dignity is not in possessing but deserving.
If winning is your only objective, you may miss out on the internal rewards that come with doing something well. More important than winning is winning with honor and deserving to have won. It is better to lose honorably than to succeed dishonestly. Losing honorably may signify lack of preparation but dishonest winning signifies lack of character.
The real test of a person's character is what he would or would not do, if he knew he would not get caught. It is not worth compromising one's integrity and taking shortcuts to win. One may win a trophy but knowing the truth one can never be a happy person. More important than winning a trophy is being a good human being.
Winners live and work every day as if it were their last day because one of these days it is going to be and nobody knows which one. But when they leave, they leave as winners.