Sometimes you lose

Life is full of wins and losses. I remember one particular loss when I was a teenager.

My football team had been up by two scores until we made a few late mistakes and ended up giving the game away to the other team. I walked off the field frustrated at myself. It rained the entire game and the field was a muddy mess, matching my mood. I suspect the loss is so vivid, because it was one of the last football games I played.

It took a long time for the sting to go away.

I remember another loss in the early 90s as a young professional. My wife and I were determined to move back to Pennsylvania. We were tiring of the high cost of living in Washington, D.C. I had two encouraging interviews with a mid-sized Pennsylvania newspaper. I was close to getting a “yes,” I could taste it. I could feel it. We needed this job.

Close but no cigar!

It was another gray rainy day, though, when I got the call from the managing editor. He started the call by saying how much he liked me. It was too much. I could feel a “but” coming. And right around the corner, it came. He paused for a second and then said that he had decided to go in a different direction. He wished me well and hung up, leaving me speechless. The job that once seemed to be within my grasp was now gone.

I’ve been fortunate. I’ve had my share of personal and professional wins over the years. I cherish them. I savior them like a well cooked Thanksgiving meal or a celebratory birthday. They go down easy. But, I remember the losses too. My brain won’t let me forget them. I can reel them off faster than you can say “what just happened here.”

It’s a feeling that never quite goes away.

Relatable experiences

I’ve been thinking about a few of them in recent weeks since watching actress Katherine LaNasa, from the show The Pitt, sit down with Stephen Colbert. In that January 2026 episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, she thanked Colbert for helping her through a “dark place.” In particular, she credited Colbert’s past comments on grief and loss for inspiring her to go on with her life.

“I was in a dark place,” LaNasa said. “I had been unemployed for a while. I had cancer. When I was growing up, if something didn’t go your way, it was like, ‘Why did you do it like that?’ So I had subconsciously developed this paradigm where I thought that if I just did everything perfectly, that I would insulate myself somehow from loss and bad things. So when I found myself in this place, I felt like a failure. I was riddled with regrets.”

What really hit me was her comments on losing.

Easing up

After listening to Colbert talk about grief, “I started to live by this new thing that sometimes you lose. Sometimes you lose. Sometimes you get the short end of the stick. Sometimes you do it wrong. Life is going bring us great beauty and great joy, but it’s also going to knock us on our ass and bring us grief and loss. So I started to lighten up . . .”

Lighten up.

Give yourself grace.

Take it easy.

Oh, I know that’s a great lesson for me. I suspect for others too. Maybe a loss isn’t a loss, but a chance to learn and move on. Maybe God’s pointing us in a different direction. Maybe a loss is . . . actually a win.

Yes, sometimes you lose!