The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
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To me the sting of defeat is always worse than the joy of victory. I’m a very non-competitive person, usually the first to turn down any kind of casual tournament or game. I never play PvP. I always concede first where it’s an option, unless I know with great certainty that I’m going to win.
It’s not that I don’t like winning, it’s that to me the joy of it is far more fleeting than defeat Where I Really Tried, which stings and which I think about long after the event. Recalling defeats hurts as if the loss was yesterday, while recalling triumphs doesn’t seem to capture any of the pleasure of the moment of victory. Being a loser in some competition doesn’t make me angry and aggressively motivated the way it seems to do to a lot of people. I can concede and feel no seething jealousy, no particular resentment, and whether I win or lose I usually forget about it quickly, unless it really feels serious in which case, as mentioned, losing is always worse than winning is great.
I don’t mean to sound like one of those depressives for whom every happiness seems temporary and every setback permanent, because I’d say I’m a pretty happy person. It’s more that I think I just don’t get as much out of both victory and defeat as other people do. Neither particularly motivates me, my happiest memories are all things like conversations with friends and loved ones, entertaining experiences, falling in love, that kind of thing. I can’t recall one real moment of personal triumph in the competitive sense that sticks with me, stuff like getting the job I wanted or getting into a good college was ten minutes of happiness (although really more like relief) before I continued with my day.
I think I’d like to become more competitive, but this attitude is holding me back from doing so. Has anyone made themselves more competitive?
I think this is the crux of it, I notice the same aversion to Really Trying in myself. If you win without really trying, then it doesn't feel good because that means that your achievement was well below your means, you might as well feel good about putting on your socks in the morning. And if you lose without really trying, it doesn't feel that bad because you can still imagine yourself winning if you really tried.
This is all an ego-protection mechanism. If you're like me, then you started conceptualizing yourself as "smart" somewhere in adolescence, and from that moment on you started trying to avoid any experience that would imply not being worthy of that label. I think the key to enjoying competition is letting go of this fixed mindset that thinks every True Loss is evidence that you permanently suck, instead of just being evidence that you temporarily suck.
As for actual practical advice, I think it's hard to practice Really Trying on the big, long-term stuff. You need a hobby you care about with a really short time-to-feedback. I started Jiu-Jitsu a few months ago, and I think it's perfect for this. The prospect of actually getting chocked out in a match of physical dominance against another man really brings out the competitive part of me, in a way that no other sport I've ever tried managed to do. Though as a woman Jiu-Jitsu might not be ideal for this unless you find a gym with a decent number of other women, against whom you actually have a chance of winning.
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