Many people have commented on the difference between cats and dogs. One saying goes, “Dogs have masters; cats have staff” while another states, “Dogs will give you unconditional love until the day they die. Cats will make you pay for every mistake you’ve ever made since the day you were born.” Whatever our view of cats and dogs, cats are divisive creatures – people either love them or hate them. Then there is the line: “My dog thinks he is human; my cat thinks he is God”. Christopher Hitchens in his book ‘The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever’ alludes to this when he says that “Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are gods.” Clearly, the way we look at things can vary completely.
The same is very true when it comes to winning and losing and again, cats can provide us with some insight on this matter. Stephen Baker, an American athlete, stated on one occasion that “To bathe a cat takes brute force, perseverance, courage of conviction – and a cat. The last ingredient is usually hardest to come by.” It is difficult to argue with that! He also proposed that “Cats are notoriously sore losers. Coming in second best, especially to someone as poorly coordinated as a human being, grates their responsibility.” Even we poorly coordinated human beings tend to be sore losers.
The fact is though that it is not only cats that are bad or sore losers; the world of sports has plenty of examples of bad losers. Someone has tried to explain that “I’m not a sore loser, I just don’t feel like playing this stupid game anymore” – many a child would echo that sentiment. Then we discover that Ron Swanson stated that “I’m not a sore loser. It’s just that I prefer to win and when I don’t, I get furious.” Having said that, though, there are also plenty of examples of varying views on what constitutes a bad loser.
Both Vince Lombardi and Paul Newman have been accredited with saying that “I’m a sore loser. I hate losing. Show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser.” Leo Durocher provided a similar slant, by saying, “Show me a good loser and I’ll show you an idiot.” Someone else has announced, “Show me a good and gracious loser and I’ll show you a failure” while James Patrick Murray mused that, “Show me a man who is a good loser and I’ll show you a man who is playing golf with his boss.” The implication in all of these statements is that there cannot be such a thing as a good loser; losers must, by definition, be bad. Good losers must be bad losers, they say!
Such people will claim that the bad loser is in fact the one who loses nicely, calmly, quietly, who shrugs off the loss quickly, easily, cheerfully, graciously. They claim that that is not the right or appropriate way to lose; that is a bad way to lose. They claim that we have to show how seriously we take any loss; they argue we cannot be friends or talk with opponents who have just beaten us. That is not losing the correct way, in their view.
Most people would say, though, that the bad loser is the one who cannot handle loss well, who screams, storms, smashes, shouts, sulks, swears, rants and raves. Such a person will lay the blame for the loss at the feet of others, not themselves; they will cry foul at every and any situation or decision that goes against them. They will not accept that someone has beaten them fairly. They will be bitter and angry and sore for days; they will behave like a spoilt child who does not get his way.
The bad loser is probably not either of the above but in fact the bad learner, the one who is not keen, willing or able to learn from the experience of losing. There is nothing wrong intrinsically with losing; losing can provide incredibly opportunities to benefit. Giorgio Chiellini has argued that, “At the end of the day it’s better to be an unpleasant winner than a nice loser” but we must learn, at school before it is too late, to be a good loser and a good winner. We might consider the television programme called ‘The Biggest Loser’ where the winner was the one who lost the most amount of weight. In simple terms, therefore, the biggest, best loser in sport will be the winner – but we find that as hard as herding cats!
