“Fought & Lost” and “We Are the Champions”: Yoga Looks at Winning and Losing

There is something nobody teaches you in school: you can do everything “right” and still lose.

You can show up, try hard, care deeply, be brave — and life can still go, “Cool story. But not you; not this time.”

And then what?

That part — the part after the loss — is where people either grow up or get a little sideways for a while. Because winning is easy to metabolize. Losing is where you find out who you really are.

We are trained for victory like it is the only storyline that matters. We have confetti for winners, trophies, podiums, and highlight reels. But we do not really have a shared language for being passed over, failing at something you wanted, getting cut from the team, trying again when you feel embarrassed, or losing a person you love.

We know how to celebrate — we are good at that. But we are still learning how to lose without turning into a cartoon villain, a ghost, or a puddle. Which is so unfortunate, because everybody loses. Even the winners lose sometimes.

I’ve been listening to a song called “Fought & Lost,” by Sam Ryder.

https://youtu.be/xtQBKRgmyVc?si=XkRG5bW_3LuDL7hw

Brian May plays lead guitar on the recording, so it makes sense that the singer leans toward Freddie Mercury’s style. If you want to give a listen, the YouTube link is here. 👆🏼

So, for me, naturally, “We Are the Champions” came to mind. That song is basically tattooed into the brain of anyone who has ever been near a stadium, a TV, or a bar with sports on in the past 45 years.

https://youtu.be/d5GkgVhFeZY?si=4QBXnV4keI3GwN5-

At first I thought: nice symmetry — one anthem for winners, one anthem for losers.

Then I listened closely to the lyrics for “We Are the Champions,” and realized I had misunderstood it for years. The chorus is what people shout when they are celebrating. But the verses are about getting knocked around — mistakes, paying dues, humiliation, continuing anyway. It is not the voice of someone who has never lost. It is the voice of someone who lost plenty and did not let that be the end of the story.

So these songs are not opposites. They are cousins. One ends with triumph, one ends with defeat, but the posture is the same:

I showed up. I gave what I had. And I am still standing.

That is not shallow win/lose storytelling. That is ethics for adults.

I love sports. Not the politics of it, or the spectacle and the celebrations. I like the game, and the handshake line. The handshake line is spiritual, and I’m not kidding. Y’all just tried to beat each other for two hours and now you’re like, “Good game.” That’s emotional regulation with sneakers on. It’s a ritual that says: “We competed hard, and no matter what the outcome, I’m not going to pretend you’re evil just because you challenged me.”

Yoga teaches the same reality in a quieter way: life is made of opposites. Win/lose. Gain/loss. Joy/grief. If you’re waiting for a life where you only win, only feel good, and only get your way — respectfully — good luck with that. The practice isn’t avoiding the hard half of the pair. The practice is staying human when it shows up.

And the distinction between an opponent and an enemy matters. Most adults still confuse “I’m challenged” with “I’m threatened.” You can watch it happen daily on social media — someone disagrees, and suddenly it’s not disagreement anymore, it’s character assassination. Yoga asks for something more mature: stay in contact with reality, feel what you feel, and don’t dehumanize the other person to regulate your own discomfort.

And most of our “fights” are not actually about the other person anyway. Often we are bumping into stress, money pressure, exhaustion, fear, old history, misunderstandings, or the simple fact that nobody ate breakfast.

(Yes, I said it. Eat something before deciding to declare war.)

So when a lyric lands on “We will see you here — same time, same place, next year,” I do not hear a need for revenge. I hear the grown-up version of conflict:

We will meet again. We will see what we learned. We will see who we are next time.

Not “I will destroy you.”

More like, “Let’s all stay in the game.”

Here is the ethical piece. Victory is only half the human curriculum. We are trained for winning like it is the whole point of being alive: strive, achieve, optimize, dominate. But life is not a straight line to a trophy. It moves in cycles — expansion and contraction, trying and failing, winning and losing, holding and letting go.

And if your identity is built entirely on winning, losing can feel catastrophic. Not just “I lost,” but “I am a loser.”

That is where people sometimes become harsh, numb, or hopeless. So the real question is not “Can you win?” The real question is: Can you lose and still remain a decent human being?

Rupture is inevitable. Cruelty is optional.

You will be disappointed. You will be hurt. You will fail. People will misunderstand you. Life will hand you outcomes you did not order. But you do not have to turn that pain into poison. Ethical adulthood looks like being upset without becoming contemptuous, being wrong without collapsing into shame, being hurt without becoming righteous, losing without needing someone else to suffer. You can keep your dignity and not tear anyone else down.

This is where yoga — or any practice — either becomes profound or stays superficial.

If a spiritual practice only helps you feel calm when things are going well, it is often more about mood management than growth. Real practice trains you for the moments when you want to bail — when the outcome is uncertain, when you are embarrassed, when you are disappointed, when life gives you bad news. The goal is not to eliminate struggle. The goal is to stay present inside it without losing your humanity — and without borrowing someone else’s humanity to soothe your aching nervous system.

And here is another thing we don’t usually discuss: sometimes the win is internal. Sometimes the win is that you stayed kind, stayed honest, stayed engaged, did not abandon yourself, did not dehumanize anyone else, and actually learned something real. That is not a consolation prize — that is the whole point of being alive! A world full of people who can only function when they are winning becomes brittle and aggressive. A world where people can strive, lose, and still remain decent? That world isn't just survivable; that world is one worth showing up for, over and over again.

And yoga, at its heart, teaches exactly that — or it teaches nothing at all.

So yes — fight. Care. Try. Go all in. And if you lose, do not add the extra tragedy of becoming smaller, meaner, or colder. Do not turn pain into a personality. Just say the clean sentence:

“I fought and lost.”

And then add the second sentence — the one that separates the kids from the adults:

“And I am still here.”

Hope to see you soon,

Andrea