What do we hate? [Note, we ask ‘what’, not ‘who’!] For some of us it may be traffic jams, the dentist’s drill or slow internet; for others, it may be people arriving late, bullies or arrogance. It may simply be selfish behaviour. But what about this: do we hate Monday morning more than we love Friday evening? Do we hate salad more than we love ice cream? Do we hate giving more than we love receiving? Truth be told, we may not have thought along those lines much but pause a moment and consider them. Is hate a stronger emotion than love in our experience?

Hate is certainly a strong emotion but it is equally negative, destructive, selfish. We do not want to lose things, especially those things that appear important to us – though our view of losing and winning may help us to ascertain how important and valuable we do consider those things. If we hate losing so strongly, then it could become a matter of doing everything possible, including cheating, injuring, spying, not to lose. And in doing that, we have lost something far more important.

So the question should be: what is so bad about losing? When it comes to sport, in particular school sport, let it be emphasized, it is just a game. So, the other team was better today than we were – so what? What is your point? What is the problem? Is it really bad to lose?

Consider then the quote famously said by the character Billy Beane (played by Brad Pitt) in the film ‘Moneyball’ which said, “I hate losing more than I love winning.” Many a sports star has echoed those words, including, apparently, Serena Williams. Now, no-one would question her status as one of the greatest tennis players of all time – she won 73 WTA Tour–level singles titles, including 23 Major women’s singles titles—the most in the Open Era, and the second-most of all time. She is the only player to accomplish a Career Golden Slam in both singles and doubles, and the only player to have simultaneously held Olympic gold and all four Major titles in both singles and doubles. Not too shoddy, is it? Was it that hatred of losing rather than a love of winning that made her so successful? We might well wonder how strong a factor that was.

There is research that shows that humans are biologically wired to fear losses up to three times more than they desire gains, despite the fact that losing is often seen to be better than winning because defeat provides the crucial feedback, humility, and resilience needed for long-term growth – Serena Williams often referred to that as being factors in her success. While winning feels good, it can also lead to complacency and hide flaws in our approach; equally, while loving a win makes us dream, hating a loss forces us to practice, plan, and work hard to prevent failure. Indeed, the pain of defeat often feels heavier than the temporary high of a victory.

The real question however may focus on what it is that we actually fear losing and love winning. What is actually so bad about losing? If it is simply a sports result that we fear losing, who really cares? We lost – big deal. Is there any comparison when we lay it alongside a death? What if we lose a friendship by the way we handle losing a sports match? Is that worth it? What if we lose respect or indeed confidence by the way we respond to sport? We should hate losing respect or confidence, yet we can lose respect by the way we handle winning. Do we lose joy by losing a school sports fixture? If yes, then perhaps we have lost respect, connection and purpose.

Ultimately, connecting with what we consider in a previous article (‘Hope is Fragile’), what we should fear most is losing hope, not a sports fixture. And the result of a sports fixture should not cause us to lose hope. Yet all too often, even at school, all hope would appear to be lost when a match is lost, especially to a rival. We have actually lost all reason and logic if such a result causes us to lose hope. And one major quality we should be providing and developing in our youngsters is hope – hope for today and hope for the future, hope for them as an individual and hope for them as a society.

We are always going to win some and lose some; in a similar way, we will no doubt always love some and hate some. The question though may well be: which is better – to love or to hate? Hate is often stronger. However, the real issue is not whether we hate losing or love winning; it is about what we learn from winning and losing. What is so bad about losing when there is so much to win from it?