At the end of any competition of consequence, where there is a winner and loser declared, invariably someone will approach the loser, they will slightly tilt there head, suck in their lips, sigh, look the loser in the eye, pat them on the back, and say “you can’t win them all.”
“You can’t win them all” has become the obligatory punctuation for any and every loss whether it be; in the board room, on the playing field, or in the court room. If you’re within ear shot of a loser and you don’t utter the punctuation you’re probably not a good person. Have never seen, read or signed the social contract, and you are not fit for assimilation in our society.
“You can’t win them all” is categorized as an idiom, a figurative statement. In the same vein as “You’re pulling my leg” when someone is teasing /pranking another, or “raining cats and dogs” as a description of a torrential downpour.
Yanking an appendage or animals falling from the sky sounds like a vivid, illustrious, yet inaccurate way of lending color to a white canvas. Where as telling someone, after a competition, that there are winners and losers, and that you won’t always win, seems more like the slight difference between coloring something egg shell or coloring it beige.
It has been my experience that “you can’t win them all” is a very literal frank explanation of outcomes, but is it accurate? Mathematically if one enters a competition where there will be a winner and a loser declared why couldn’t an individual win every time? Mathematically he or she can go undefeated, although it’s not likely.
It’s also unclear to me why the declaration of “you can’t win them all” is always said to the loser, at the end of competition, after a loss. Logically, it would seem to me more sensible to proclaim that at the onset of the competition so that the competitors understand the consequences of their impending competition.
Emotionally, I understand why it’s not said at the onset of competition. It’s not said because no one wants to lose, no one desires to support a loser, and no one wants to put doubt in the mind of a competitor prior to a competition. Which begs the question why do it afterwards?
Unless the competitor is retiring there will be another competition. A loss already feels bad. Losing sucks. Why embrace losing with “loser talk”?
In these fragile times after a loss I find it important to be encouraging. “We’ll get them next time” is poignant, proper, and well placed.
“You can’t win them all” needs to be assassinated.
