On losing

One Art- Elizabeth Bishop

"The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster,

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three beloved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

-- Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) a disaster."

I hate sore losers- they're the worst. I would know, because I used to be one of them. Sore winners suck also- I was one of those too. I was just too intense about it all. You know, what they say is true: you need to learn how to lose before you can truly learn how to win. Unfortunately, some people never learn; it's really sad, and in fact quite embarrassing. A bit of humility here and there is always good for the soul.

I've always been super competitive- even to this day- in sports, in school, and in life. I'm a lot more relaxed about everything now though because, like in Ms. Bishop's poem, I'm learning to master the art of losing. Now this may sound pessimistic, but that's not my intent. I'm just saying that as I have become more mature, I've learned that losing is simply part of life, and knowing how to deal with that makes all the wins so much sweeter.

I think that what she's really trying to say is that as we experience loss in our lives, we learn from it (whatever it may be) and become stronger.