It's hard to change the way you lose

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Have you ever wished you weren’t the person you are? That you could be someone else? Or maybe you just wish you could change some fundamental part of yourself. Have you ever felt hopeless against the overwhelming reality of who you are?

I’m a strong believer in our capacity to learn. And here it’s important to realize that we don’t always learn the right lessons. While I don’t think we come into this life a blank slate, it’s probably something pretty close to it. From day one, our mind is hard at work – observing, processing, learning. Our brain’s ultimate function and responsibility is to allow us to develop the skills necessary to cope with the experiences we face. The skills we learn determine our strengths and weaknesses – which in turn condition our experiences.

This feedback loop can be very powerful, limiting our lives to a very narrow slice of the possible.

Many if not most of our behaviors follow closely the relative skills we’ve learned, and are coping mechanisms – helping us deal with the situations we routinely face. Behaviors, as much as addictive substances, can be habit forming, and over time the experience of those behaviors – and the situations they were developed to cope with – condition our expectations. Before long, we don’t expect life to be any different than what we’ve always known, and we can scarcely imagine anything better. In this way, we’re each very much prisoners to our own selves, to the experiences that made (and make) us the way we are.

Most dangerous of all, over time our life experience prompts us to make an assumption – one that, although it sounds true, is in fact a lie: Our lives are the way they are because that’s what we deserve. The crushing implication is that, in the words of Stephen Chbosky, we can only “accept the love we think we deserve.”

In short, “it’s hard to change the way you lose if you think you’ve never won.” Props to Matt Nathanson for that one. It rings particularly true to me right now – almost like the church bells at the end of a requiem. Ok, maybe not that ominously or with quite that degree of finality. But it’s hard to argue against the reality it summarizes: that our lives are a beaten path that we rarely stray from. So rarely, in fact, that we can scarcely imagine scenery other than what we see each day.

Ok, so this post is getting pretty depressing. But it’s true – and for that reason alone it’s worth writing. But I’m not a fatalist, and I refuse to take a totally negative view on anything. There is always, in every truth, a kernel of hope.

So, is it possible to change the way you lose? Yes, it is. But doing so requires an enormous amount of faith, hope and courage.

Faith in yourself – that you have infinite potential and that you could learn everything you haven’t yet learned, if only you gave yourself the chance; that you could become everything you are not yet, if only you were faced with the experiences you need to mold your character – and the courage and strength to bear them with true patience.

Hope in a better future, a fuller, richer life. It’s not easy to hope when your past experiences tell you that hope is a dangerous lie, and that you get only what you deserve. It requires clear vision: the ability to see the future you want, the person you know you can be.

But above all, such hope requires courage – a god-like supply of it. Nothing is harder than facing down your own fears. Nothing makes you feel crazier than telling a lifetime of experience to shut the hell up as you embark on a journey that you have little reason to believe will end in anything but bitter tears and disappointment.

All that sounds like a little too much for one mere mortal to manage. If you feel that way too, you’re in good company. I don’t think anyone’s capable of it, on their own. Fortunately, while life can often feel hopelessly lonely, it’s been my experience that, from time to time, and when he’s convinced I’m ready to give up, God sends someone my way.

A friend can make all the difference in the world. When someone goes out of their way to love you and reach out to you of their own accord, it must mean that there’s still something about you worth fighting for, right? When you see no reason to believe in yourself, the love and confidence of a friend can reignite the spark of self worth. A true friend challenges what you've always assumed about yourself, and gives you the chance to expand your vision to realms you had already abandoned hope of achieving.

Such friends have, in my life, restored faith in who I am, hope in a happier future, and the courage to try and make it a reality.

Little is as disabling as loneliness. Nothing is as enabling as true friendship.

I won’t tell anyone that if you just grit your teeth hard enough and summon enough gumption you can overcome your demons. I’ve never found that to be true. But I do believe that where friendship and love are present, miracles can happen.

I thank my God for every good friend he has sent my way, who has crossed my path, who has restored my faith.

It is indeed hard to change the way you lose, which is why we desperately need friends to convince us we deserve more than the love we have come to expect. May God, in his mercy, grant you such friends when you need them most.