On Winning

Someone asked me recently whether it is better to win or to do your best. It's an old question, I know, but it never ceases to get me thinking. As usual, the original question led to a whole lot of additional questions:

• Is it truly winning if you didn't do your best?
• If you truly did your best, does it matter if you won?
• If you lose and didn't try your best, is it worse than if you gave it your all but still wound up in last place?
• Did you win if you were the Most Valuable Player on the last place team?

Everybody has to answer these questions for themselves. As for me, here's my take on winning:

The goal in life is to win honourably and elegantly.

If that's not possible, the goal is to win honourably.

If that's not possibly, you haven't really won.