Lessons About Loss That You Need to Learn Young

Here’s something that I think everyone needs to learn and learn young. How to lose and not let it destroy your life and your work. It takes a strong soul to lose and embrace the fact rather than live in denial. Keep these few tips on your finger tips when you lose or anticipate loss.

When you get knocked down, you need to punch the fuck back. In Luganda, there is a saying “ekigwo ekiimu, tekileema mwana kuziina,” which roughly translates to ‘one fall doesn’t refuse a child from dancing again.” Get up, and act. Don’t get me wrong, I am not asking you to get physical unless of course you are in the boxing business.

There’s one thing to master. You don’t take that many hits without learning one or two important things about how to react, about how to go through it. But like any form of learning, patience is a virtue. Be prepared to learn from the loss and not to give excuses.

If you try to make excuses and explain it away, your insecurity is going to show and you’ll miss out on a chance to learn something. Many times, this is what happens when we lose, we shrug it away instead of accepting failure, and solving the problem.

It all starts with accepting that you have made a loss. Burn denial out of your life. Denial can lead to your failure, as denial piles, failure creeps out of the crevices of success and waits for that final blow to take over.

Men are dangerous, but I can’t and will never respect anyone who isn’t able to admit that they lost. Such a man is not man enough and deserves not my nor your respect.

Everyone at some point is going to meet failure and losses but one must learn to lose gracefully. It doesn’t make you less of a man to fall back and realize you made a mistake that led to a loss, and it’s only through losing gracefully that we can find solutions to our losses.

Here are a few lessons to always keep at heart;

1. Loss is inevitable.
2. Always be patient.
3. Pain and joy can co-exist.
4. Be true to yourself.
5. Direction is more important than speed.

At an early age, I learned that people make mistakes, and you have to decide if their mistakes are bigger than your love for them. — Angle Thomas.