The Winner

A friend wrote today asking for the secret of always being a winner. (Remember, I never lose, ie, I always win. I realise that in English never losing and always winning have different meanings, much as not guilty does not imply innocence. Read "never losing" and "always winning" in a mathematical sense, however, and you will find the meanings equivalent, if not equal. There, now that I have lost all my readers, let me continue.)

Times are very difficult right now. Wars, torture, worldwide recession (depression?), taliban making inroads into West Pakistan...I could go on, but that's enough to make my point. I think we can all use this little story to remind ourselves of our own individual greatness.

I actually wrote this little piece as an e-mail to a depressed friend a few months ago. Today seems a good time to share it with all of you. The story is not original, of course, it has been floating around for a long time. And I should probably warn you that, OK, I bring up the subject of sex in this post. I know that among my generation of Sikhs, sex simply doesn't exist; little Sikhlings magically spring into existence with no action from their startled parents.

I think, however, the younger generation, being highly educated and very realistic, can handle this. As can my nonSikh readers.

We Sikhs are supposed to always remain in chardi kala. This isn't easy; we are not only plagued by all the problems of every other segment of humanity, we also have a few problems of our own. Sometimes it gets overwhelming. Like other people, sometimes we can start feeling depressed and stop feeling like winners. For when that happens (and I guarantee it will), here is a little story:

A long time ago, your father and mother had sex. Your father distributed millions of sperm into your mother.

On and on they swam, their goal: your mother's egg. As they swam, more and more fell behind, until, reaching the egg, the weaker ones had all dropped out of the race. Only a few very strong ones reached the egg.




Now, the bravest and strongest of all those millions of sperm reached the egg first and penetrated the membrane and fertilised the egg.





That winning sperm and that winning egg...became [enter your name here]



YOU! You are already not only a winner, you are THE WINNER.


You have nothing to prove. Now, go out there and win. (Whatever winning means to you)

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Why try to fit in? You were born to stand out.