How to Be a Happy Loser | A Guide for Modern Day Untouchables
Imagine a guy without a job, no success in his life, who’s a heavy drinker and still living with his parents at thirty-five. He tries finding love using a dating app, and after a few weeks of swiping, he manages to arrange a meeting with a potential mate in a restaurant. The couple has a pleasant chit-chat until the woman he’s with asks: “So, what do you do?”
Even though the couple had a reasonably fun night afterward, the woman declined a second date. When her friends asked why, she replied: “Well, he’s nice, not bad looking, but I’ve decided to stop dating losers.” Not that there’s anything wrong with choosing who you want to date: it’s everyone’s right to decline if a romantic prospect doesn’t suit one’s demands.
The purpose of this example is to show one of the many ways people nowadays use the word “loser.” In many modern-day cultures, being a so-called “loser” means you deserve ridicule and contempt. After all: you’re failing in life, and that’s your fault. So, you’re a loser. However, when we look closer, calling someone a ‘loser’ is a pretty short-sighted way of defining a person.
Firstly, what exactly has this person lost? What defines failure? And to what extent is this perceived failure someone’s fault? And why do we need to ridicule people who don’t meet specific standards? In short: why is being a ‘loser’ a thing? No one wants to be a loser. Because of today’s tendency to call people ‘losers,’ many fear becoming one. Yet, for many, it’s unavoidable to be seen as one.
The previous video, “Be a Loser If Need Be,” explored why being “seen” as a loser isn’t necessarily bad through the lens of Stoic philosophy. This video explores the stupidity of calling people losers (in a derogatory fashion, at least) and how to be a happy “loser.” The term “loser” is a noun related to the verb “to lose,” technically meaning someone who “loses” or “has lost.”
The Dutch word for ‘loser’ is ‘verliezer,’ which means someone who has lost. For example, a losing team in a soccer match are “verliezers.” The French word for ‘loser’ (which is ‘perdant’) means more or less the same thing: a person who has lost. But the meaning of the English word ‘loser’ goes far beyond just ‘someone who has lost.’ An opinion article on Prince George Citizen states:
When loser is used in the way it is intended to be used, it is just part of life. You win some and you lose some. Losing shouldn’t and doesn’t define us. However, loser has been turned into a derogatory term. An insult tossed out with little thought: Don’t be such a loser, you’re a real loser or a born loser.
People apply the word ‘loser’ to different situations. If you haven’t reached at least the minimum standard of what society perceives as success, you’re a loser. If you’re addicted to substances and live on the streets, you’re a loser. If you’re unattractive and can’t find a partner, you’re a loser. If you’re not having sex, you’re a loser.
Some people use ‘loser’ in an even broader sense, for example, to attack political opponents perceived as less successful or soldiers killed or injured in war. An article on Salon named “America’s biggest divide: winners and losers” explores the strong dichotomy between winners and losers in American culture. I quote:
America is deeply divided between those who are considered (and consider themselves) winners and those who (...) are considered by the winners to be losers.
Author Neal Gabler writes that the division between winners and losers may be more significant than other divisions based on race, religion, politics, or economics. “Losers are cultural pariahs — the American equivalent of India’s untouchables,” Gabler states. Hence, we could ask: who wants to date an ‘untouchable?’ Who, in their right minds, wants to date a loser?
Unless the universe is entirely deterministic, it seems that we all possess the power of choice. For example, we can choose to get out of bed early and get some work done; we can choose to exercise. However, the idea that our lives result from our choices isn’t the entire story. The vast majority of events in our lives are not up to us but also decide in what position we are.
There’s a common belief that being a ‘loser’ is one’s own fault: a loser just didn’t work hard enough. And if you’re in the deplorable state of ‘loserdom,’ you’ve only yourself to blame. But, we often forget that there’s something called fate. The ancient Stoics observed that external events are not in our control; we only control our actions. I quote:
We can control our attitudes, opinions, goals and desires – choices of our own. We can’t control health, wealth, fame or power – things we can’t have by choosing them.
Despite one’s ability to choose (so we can conclude from Epictetus’ words), the vast majority of choices concerning our circumstances are made for us. It’s not that our actions never contribute to our position in life; making unwise decisions repeatedly most likely has unpleasant consequences, but still, this varies per person.
Humanistic psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman spent his entire career studying psychological characteristics that predict achievement and creativity. In an article in Scientific American, he explains that the role of luck is significant when it comes to life success: more significant than most of us believe. Not that talent doesn’t matter, but factors like country of residence, income distribution, name, and even month of birth, decide one’s success.
Kaufman also presents scientific data suggesting that luck and misfortune decide the trajectory of talented and less talented individuals and that the most talented individuals were rarely the most successful. A series of lucky events makes not-so-talented people very successful. A series of unlucky events makes very talented people very unsuccessful. I quote:
Talent was definitely not sufficient because the most talented individuals were rarely the most successful. In general, mediocre-but-lucky people were much more successful than more-talented-but-unlucky individuals. The most successful agents tended to be those who were only slightly above average in talent but with a lot of luck in their lives.
We don’t decide if we’re born in a war-torn, impoverished country like Somalia or in the Netherlands. Neither do we choose if our parents are prosperous, civilized, and capable of raising children well or if we’re born to parents with addictions and incapable of raising children.
We also have no say in how smart, beautiful, or handsome we are or if we have an overall pleasant youth without traumatic events. Nor do we control genetics in regards to illness or substance abuse. For the most part, we’re utterly out of control. Fortune deals the cards for us; the only thing we can do is to play with the hands we’re dealt.
Often but not always, people’s cards are so bad that their chances of winning are slim – winning, in this case, means winning in terms of societal expectations. No matter what tactics they use or how much effort they put in, these people most likely lose: they have bad luck. But within the present-day toxic dichotomy of winners and losers, they’re the losers and, thus, automatically deserve contempt and blame.
The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer argued that other people’s opinions are unimportant to our happiness. He also noticed that people deeply care about how others estimate them. So, it’s no surprise that being called a loser can be very impactful, as it’s the ultimate devaluation in the eyes of others.
However, the experience of being seen as a loser comes down to opinions and how we think about those opinions. Being a loser in itself doesn’t have to be bad at all. We can be mentally and physically healthy and still be considered a loser. We can have all our necessities met, yet people see us as losers.
Also, whether or not people view us as losers varies per social segment. For example, in some communities, being homeless may be the threshold of falling into the loser category. In other communities, being unable to fly first class may grant you the loser label. Again, in other groups, someone who never married is considered a loser. Thus, the whole notion of being a loser is highly subjective and doesn’t say much about our well-being.
Schopenhauer says we shouldn’t take other people’s opinions too seriously. A previous video (about ‘rejection’) contains a passage from Schopenhauer’s work that also fits here. I quote:
What goes on in other people’s consciousness is, as such, a matter of indifference to us; and in time we get really indifferent to it, when we come to see how superficial and futile are most people’s thoughts, how narrow their ideas, how mean their sentiments, how perverse their opinions, and how much of error there is in most of them; when we learn by experience with what depreciation a man will speak of his fellow when he is not obliged to fear him, or thinks that what he says will not come to his ears.
How to be a happy loser? From Schopenhauer’s view expressed in his work The Wisdom of Life, there’s a difference between what you are and what you are in the estimation of others. Society seeing you as a loser doesn’t automatically mean there’s something wrong with you. Your environment seeing you as a winner doesn’t automatically mean you’re all that great.
If you’re miserable, destructive, and people call you a loser, then you’re not a happy loser, and, perhaps, change is recommended. But if people call you a loser, yet, you’re happy, you’re a happy loser (which doesn’t mean you’re a morally good person; you’re just a happy person, despite people calling you a loser).
However, Schopenhauer observed that people generally attach great importance to how others see them. Hence, it’s difficult for many to be satisfied when their surroundings see them as losers, even though, apart from other people’s opinions, they’re pretty content with who they are and how they live.
So, in many cases, the difference between a happy and unhappy loser may simply lie in how much we care about what other people think. Schopenhauer believed that caring about who we are in the estimation of others is a weakness we should limit; what’s going on in the consciousness of others shouldn’t influence our sense of well-being.
If society categorizes someone as a ‘loser,’ this person may not want to take this label too seriously. It’s a derogatory term based on the false belief that people’s unfortunate positions are always their fault, that they’re to blame for it and deserving of contempt.
While, in reality, we don’t control our fates, and, many if not most times, our life’s circumstances are just luck. This wrong assessment of reality only reinforces Schopenhauer’s attitude towards people’s opinions and sentiments: perverse and narrow.
However, within unfortunate circumstances, we always have a choice. Even though this sounds cliché, we can still make the best of it. But if a person does make the best of his situation, society might still see him as a loser. So be it.
How people perceive each other is not up to the individual. Should you care so much about society’s opinion, then? Because if you don’t, people calling us losers becomes irrelevant. What counts is your definition of good and bad, success and failure, and winning and losing.
A happy loser doesn’t care about people calling him (or her) a loser; a happy loser happily accepts his position as untouchable if that’s the price to pay for choosing his own terms to live by in the face of Fortune’s whims.
Thank you for watching.