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In the success trap, the loser may be the real winner

Francisco Miraval

A few months ago, I read the story of a Latina mother in Denver who bought a few tickets in a drawing organized by a local charity and won a new and luxurious home. However, winning caused her so much trouble that she said she would have been happier not winning such a prize.

The new home needed a new landscape and a new fence, but the “winner” lacked the resources to install them. And even if she has had those resources, she said she simply did not have enough money to pay for the monthly maintenance of her new property.

If I remember correctly, there was no alternative for her to accept her prize in cash, instead of accepting the house, due to the rules of the sweepstakes. Those rules also prevented her from selling the house before a certain time. The last thing I know is that the “winner” decided to spend Christmas with her family at the new home. It seems that shortly after that the property was abandoned.

That story is an example that, when caught in the trap of “success,” losing may be better than winning.

I have seen a similar situation in the case of a friend of mine who, after many years of working almost in obscurity, received the opportunity to work for a large and prestigious corporation, with an important salary and an impressive office.

In a short time, this person was enjoying a life he thought he would never enjoy, including meetings with influential personalities and invitations to exclusive events. However, he paid a high price for all his “success,” because he neglected his daily exercises and meditation, he stopped attending religious services, and he experienced problems with his family.

In other words, “success” led him to lose precisely those things he valued the most and that motivated him to become successful. He is no longer the person who he used to be. That is the usual cost to be paid for being “successful.”

I was thinking about the price of success when I was recently watching a TV program, produced by two well-known American singers, that shows those two singers traveling all over Latin America to search for new talents for their upcoming show in Las Vegas.

Week after week, this program shows how those not selected to be part of the show return in tears to their countries. But, who are the real losers, those who were not chosen or those who were chosen?

The chosen ones are no longer part of the groups they used to belong to and are no longer free to perform where and when they want it. They are no longer themselves and they are separated from their family and friends.

For that reason, the “losers” seem to be the real winners. It is true they go back to a situation where you struggle every day just to survive. But they are still themselves, with all their sadness, but with all their freedom too.

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