This might be obvious to everyone around me…
2007-10-09So, upon doing some reflection about this, that, and the other thing(*), I’ve come to realize something about myself.
I hate to lose.
As a corollary, I don’t like to commit to something unless I know that I can win at it. But once I’ve committed to something, I have to win.
Of course, an important part of this is defining victory conditions. I generally think tactically or operationally, so I think my victory conditions tend to be defined at those levels.
I think that this partially explains my fascination with desperate last stands. You’re surrounded, so you have two choices: surrender or die. It’s a simple decision, and, in some ways, quite freeing. (I think that the Texans in the audience might understand.) But, you can’t really lose. The victory condition is easy: “Fight until you die.” Only surrender is a loss.
Anyways, I knew that I was competitive, but I hadn’t really considered how important victory is to me until today.
I now await my friends telling me, “Duh. We knew that already.”
(*)Yes, there are actually three different things that intersected at this blog post. Go figger.