07/10/2025
Spindle - By Chitra Selvaraj, Editor
REAL VICTORY – Victory is not prevailing by annihilating competition. Victory is authentic only if you overcome challenges and prove you are worthy of receiving the outcome. In other words, coming out ahead by bullying, threatening, manipulating or controlling others, is not victory. Attaining your desired outcome in this manner, on the contrary, is a sign of cowardice, lack and fear.
A person of integrity and inner strength will never infringe and will attain their outcome only through their own merit. They believe in themselves and therefore, have no need to resort to aggression or coercion to succeed. They have inner strength that arises from truth, integrity and character, and this will take them where they need to go.
Victory does not simply mean winning, but it means inner transformation, and the positive impact you can have on others, as a result of it. You can’t have a positive impact, unless you have what it takes to be there, to fulfill the meaning and purpose of the outcome. Otherwise, it’s nothing but a selfish desire for the benefits without being able to serve the purpose.
A person who truly merits it, is never afraid of healthy competition. It is healthy competition that stimulates creativity, which leads to growth, improved efficiency, performance, development and quality of life. Thus, to attain victory, one must focus on one’s own efforts and transformation.
Focusing on silencing competition is proof that you don’t believe in yourself or that you fear you have no chance of making it because the others have something more to offer. You believe that the only way you can make it, is by eliminating all competition and being the sole option available. Such a choice is not a real choice.
Einstein didn’t become famous by suppressing other scientists. He let others grow and he worked to outshine them through his own unique observation of the world around him. We wouldn’t have e=mc2, or other innovations in science, if everyone competed by eliminating others. We would have become extinct long ago, if that were the case. Science, knowledge, culture, or art can grow only when it’s stimulated, not annihilated.
Victory achieved in such a manner through fair play is sweet, for it came through growth. Then it is not something you merely attained, but something you have become and is a part of you. By suppressing others, the winning stems from a “lack” mindset, and thus does not confer the same experience of joy, as does one with merit. When it comes through elimination, it can be taken away any time or forgotten. But when it comes through merit, it is forever.
E=mc2 has its own place, no matter how many groundbreaking discoveries follow. Mozart, Shakespeare, Beethoven, Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton, Galileo Galilei and many others will live forever, no matter how many brilliant compositions and discoveries have followed that may have even surpassed theirs.
Genuine victory thus comes only when you let your inner light shine through.
INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES — “Show class, have pride, and display character. If you do, winning takes care of itself.” — Paul Bryant
“If you cheat to win you really can’t claim victory because you did not play fair.” – Germany Kent
“We learned about honesty and integrity - that the truth matters. ... That you don’t take shortcuts or play by your own set of rules. ... And success doesn’t count unless you earn it fair and square.” – Michelle Obama.
HERE’S THE SCOOP — July is National Ice Cream Month and the Bee is excited to announce our eighth annual Here’s the Scoop promotion. This local listing of ice cream shops, stops and more publishes in all nine Bee newspapers today, Thursday, July 10. Also back is our Ice Cream Search A Word Contest, which brought hundreds of responses last year! So the scoop is, look for the contest in this week’s Classified section!
