Winners and Losers

"Talking Heads" usually drive me crazy. But every once in a while someone will say something that at least gets my attention. This morning a gentleman was discussing the 700 billion dollar bailout proposed by our government. He noted that the bailout was guaranteeing that the institutions involved would not fail. His concern was the message that would send to all of us that we should never let anyone fail. This is the same message that we teach from preschool and beyond. Children are not allowed to play games where there is a clear winner and loser because it might damage their psyche. The truth is there are winners and losers and there always will be. Until we spend time training up winners and teaching others how to lose gracefully, we will forever be bailing people out of messes. The greatest feeling in the world is winning at anything. However, the greatest lessons learned come from our defeats. Thomas Edison failed over 10,000 times before he discovered the light bulb. If someone had bailed him out, we would be sitting in the dark trying to figure out how to come up with this 700 billion dollars.