Someone has to lose
Someone has to lose. And so it was this morning. Fortunately it was not us. I am talking about the quarter finals of the Rugby World Cup, played at 8am our time. It was a cracker of a game with a nail-biting 80-minutes that continued right until the final whistle. Fortunately, it was the All Blacks who led in that final, thrilling end and it was the Irish on attack, fighting for the try that would have given them a win. The New Zealanders put up a beautiful defence but boy did that cause some adrenalin. The game could have gone either way. New Zealand had two men down for two ten-minute spells after being yellow-carded, so that was even more of a deserving win to them but in the same token, an incredibly disappointing loss for the World No 1 Irish team, who played so gallantly.
But that is life. Where there are winners, there are losers too. We had our general election yesterday with the results tallied up throughout the evening. There were winners and losers there as well. There will be some bitterly disappointed people around today, especially those whose seats had sat for years with one party and have now switched. But the people of New Zealand have spoken. I watched part of the TVNZ Q&A programme this morning after watching the All Black game. The announcer asked a question about the cause of the massive swing towards National. Was it that people wanted what National offered, or was it that they didn’t want more of what Labour had already provided? The recipient of that question said she didn’t know. My thoughts are that the people didn’t want any more of what we have had, particularly for the last three years. At the moment, the country is swinging towards being divided by race. The majority of the people don’t want that, they see us as one country and want to be governed accordingly, as one people. Once one starts dividing on the basis of race, that’s when difficulties within the country arise.
There will definitely be changes ahead for us with this new government but it won’t be for another three weeks until the special votes are counted, that we will see just how many parties will join to be our current government. If things stay at the status quo, National could probably do it with just one other party, but if any seats go against them, then they may need to work with a third. I am hoping that is the case, because I am particularly fond of this party, one that is not afraid of calling out things as they stand. I shall wait with anticipation to see the final outcome.
Losing can come at a cost too. Often heads roll, but should this be the case? As I pointed out in the beginning, if two teams are playing each other, then one has to lose. Its as simple as that.
It’s a brutal world we live in. Sometimes, we give our all and we are still not good enough. We can only lick our wounds and try again in the future. Afterall, that is life too, where we learn from our losses, rise from the ashes and strive once again, to reach the top. And remember to celebrate any wins we do have along the way.