You've lost but you don't have to be a loser
You have to lose to know how to win
Aerosmith - Dream On
Human psychology leads us to want to associate with success. When the local sports team is winning we associate their success with our own, evidenced by our use of first person plural pronouns in our celebrations (ie. We did it! We won the championship!). But when the team is losing we tend to disassociate by using third person pronouns (ie. they really sucked!). When someone looks and sounds like they are winning, and not just in the Charlie Sheen sense, they are more persuasive to us and seen as more desirable.
This information is bad news for you and all of us who are going through some sort of social ostracization or cancellation. When you are down and out you lose a lot of your ability to influence others and not just because you have a bad reputation. Even if people don’t believe the negative press about you they are still reluctant to listen to you because you are now a loser and they unconsciously believe that any advice or influence that you could provide would inevitably be tainted with your losing nature. You may not wish to be that influential at this moment but life requires you to be able to influence others from time to time. Whether it’s influencing someone to hire you or invest in you, or even just to feed your dog while you’re away, you need to be able to gain allies who are willing to say yes to the occasional request. To put it bluntly, you being a loser keeps this from happening and you will continue to fall even further from grace if this is not remedied.
You likely do not have an expensive public relations team that can help you regain a functioning reputation so instead your focus needs to be on building your own internal sense of victory. This is not a fake it until your make it situation. Pretending to be on top of the world while you’re actually in hell will not work. Your pain will show through to even a casual observer. You have to actually win in order to signal to those around you that you are not losing.
Winning in this sense does not involve defeating anyone specifically. This is the moral victory of finding your own worth and strength despite the social bumps and bruises you have accrued. Winning looks more like Hermann Hesse’s advice below:
To hold our tongues when everyone is gossiping, to smile without hostility at people and institutions, to compensate for the shortage of love in the world with more love in small, private matters; to be more faithful in our work, to show greater patience, to forgo the cheap revenge obtainable from mockery and criticism: all these are things we can do.
If you measure your victories with materialistic metrics you are at risk of at least two dead ends. First, while you may be able to fool a few people by buying your way into confidence it is likely to present as phoney. Over compensating by acquiring things may look like victory has been achieved but it’s like picking up the cheque at the restaurant without actually eating. The victory you need is more of the moral variety. Second, in your current position you might not be poised to show off financially anyway which could lead to even more losing. You don’t want to set unrealistic expectations for yourself that might continue a downward spiral. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t strive to improve your material situation and that it wouldn’t be a welcomed bonus to regain financial freedom and status but the real gains that will help you recover from social despair come in a deeper, more psychologically integrated form.
The good news is that the victory needed is not expensive, at least not in financial terms. When we try to improve our “happiness” our instinct is to take the hedonic route. This is when we seek pleasure and avoid pain. We all do it. But Aristotle taught that for deeper, more complete, and transcending happiness we are better off striving for eudaemonia, which has to do with self-fulfillment, meaningfulness, and strengthening virtues. All of this, while a difficult and lifelong pursuit, costs little in terms of finances.
Whether you’re rich or poor or something in between, you are on a path to having either a fulfilling or disappointing life or something in between. While the occasional hedonic victory is appreciated, we don’t get to bring our riches beyond the grave. You will not die a loser if you never taste the finest caviar but you will want to have tasted the birthday cake of a loved one because that means someone cared enough to share a special day with you. You do not buy a virtuous life with money but with spiritual anguish and intention, and you have plenty of that these days.
Character. Virtue. Meaning. This is the time to stock up on these spiritual riches. These are the indicators of a victorious life. Learn to transcend pleasure and pain, and to find purpose in the simple and beautiful and then you become a winner in the game of life.