Wanting to Win, Without Wanting You to Lose
“Wanting to win is wanting to stand above someone. Not wanting to lose to someone is wanting to stand beside them.”
I was watching a movie about two guys auditioning for the same role. They were close but also different in where they were in their careers.
One was just starting out. The other had already built a name for himself.
The one who just started his career said something that made me pause.
He told his friend “I don’t want to lose to you, so let’s keep a distance between us till the end of the audition”.
At first, it sounded almost strange.
Why would you say that to someone you care about?
But the more I thought about it, the more beautiful it became.
He wasn’t saying “I don’t want you to succeed.”
He wasn’t saying “I need to beat you.”
He was saying, in his own way, “I care about you but I don’t want my feelings for you to make me hold back.”
And maybe there’s a kind of love in that.
We often think love means wanting someone to win, especially when we’re standing beside them. We celebrate their achievements, encourage them, and wanting them to succeed.
But what happens when the person you love is also your competition?
What happens when you both want the same thing?
Sometimes love can make us uncomfortable with competition. We might hold back because we don’t want to hurt the other person or we might secretly want them to hold back for us.
But there is something beautiful about being able to say:
Give me your best.
And being able to mean it.
I don’t want to win because you made it easy for me.
I don’t want you to lose because you cared about me.
I want us to meet at our best.
I want you to challenge me.
I want to know that if I win, I earned it. And if you win, you earned it too.
That isn’t the absence of love.
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Perhaps, in some situations it’s love at it’s healthiest.
Because wanting to win can sometimes come from the desire of wanting to stand above someone else.
But not wanting to lose to someone can come from the desire to stand beside someone.
There is a difference.
One says “I need to be better than you”
The other says “I need to know that I can stand with you”
And maybe that is what the character was really asking for.
Not distance because he didn’t care.
Distance because he cared enough to want the competition to remain honest.
He didn’t want their relationship to become an advantage.
He didn’t want either of them to soften their effort because they cared about the other person.
He wanted a fair game.
And I think that kind of love is rare.
The kind that doesn’t need to make itself smaller for someone else.
The kind that doesn’t need the person it loves to fail so it can feel successful.
The kind that can look someone and say:
I love you. I believe in you. And I’m still going to give you everything I’ve got.
Because sometimes, the greatest respect we can give someone is to refuse to underestimate them.
To take their dreams seriously.
To meet them at their level.
To let them challenge us.
And to want them to become the best version of themselves — even if that means they might become better than us.
Maybe true love isn’t always about choosing between me and you.
Maybe it’s about creating a space where there can be you and me — two people giving their best, pushing each other and still being able to celebrate whoever reaches the finish line first.
Because I don’t need to stand above you.
Sometimes, I just want to know that I can stand beside you.
