Blog Challenge Day 22: V is for Victory

You win when you get up from the bed on Monday morning instead of complaining how awful this world is. You win when you help that annoying colleague at work. You help when you're patient. You win when you help a blind person to board a train. You win when you go beyond your weaknesses and persevere. You win when you help that teenager with their homework.

You win a smile, words of gratitude, a better day and a sense of achievement. Even tough those awards are not something you can touch and put on your shelf for others to see, they're worthy even more than them. Because they pave your way to real success in life. Success which includes other people, which makes world a better place and is not achieved at somebody's cost. We need big victories and they are important but they're something we sometimes work for months or years to achieve. Little victories of every day are those which make life meaningful and raise an inner winner in us.
 

Usually we associate winning with some kind of competition either in sport, at school or at work but life is not a competition and, thankfully, there can be more than one winner. Standing on the top of any podium can be lonely but winning in life goes far beyond that and actually the bigger crowd wins the better. Don't let anyone convince you of something else telling you that those small every day victories don't count and it's career and money or anything "very important" that makes you a winner.

In today Bible in One Year by Nicky Gumbel I've read his words: "I tried following the example of a missionary I once heard about who each day would read the four verses from today’s New Testament passage (1 Corinthians 13), which lists the sixteen characteristics of love. For the word ‘love’ she would substitute her own name. When she reached a characteristic that she knew was not true of her, she had to stop. Her aim was, one day, to get through the whole list."
That's the kind of winning I am talking about. Don't concentrate on winning for yourself, because you'll have no one to celebrate with but concentrate on winning together and for others, because then you'll be able to throw a party and celebrate a real success.