A long time ago, I wrote this manifesto on Talking Chop about the importance of defeat. Braves fans were getting a little too complacent with the idea that the Braves were a competent potential contender that season, and the populous got a little too out of control insufferable when the Braves lost a series against a non-contender, and me being one of the Nazi mods of the site at the time, took it upon myself to instead admonish and ban people, to educate them about the importance of losing.
The main point was basically that victory has no importance if there was never any risk of losing. Victory cannot be sweet if defeat is not bitter. Without the fear of failure, there is no gratification when there is success.
Not only does this apply to just sports, it applies to just about any endeavor, where there is either success or failure. The greater chance for failure versus the difficulty of success makes victory that much sweeter if it’s achieved.
Today was Marriott Day. AKA, the day when the Atlanta Marriott Marquis opened the floodgates for room reservations for Dragon*Con. Personally, I hate Marriott Day, because I loathe the idea of having to fiercely compete with tens of thousands of people for a very sparing number of rooms at a grossly inflated cost. Just in general, I hate the idea of having to fiercely compete with a large number of people for a sparing number of anything, because it stresses me out and causes a lot of really silly anxiety in general.
My heart rate is elevated in the minutes prior to the start of the time when rooms go on sale, and I have three browsers open with the hotel site ready and waiting. I have my address, email and credit card information all in a text file, ready for quick copying and pasting, and I’m nervously shaking my foot or tapping my heel in anticipation. Around the world, I know there are thousands of other nerds doing the exact same thing. What really sucks is that there’s no real skill or strategy behind it, it ultimately becomes a massive game of luck, if your internet connection can simply squeeze through better than the internet connections of all the other people vying for the same rooms as you are. In a way, that kind of makes it worse, because it doesn’t matter how well-prepared you are, because if like your internet sucks, or you type your information too slow, your desired room could vanish just that quickly.
In spite of the setbacks of the hotel, the Passkey software, or whatever other factors, I managed to prevail and secure my room at the Marriott for next year. I succeeded. I emerged victorious.
It’s no doubt an awesome feeling being one of the lucky thousands to have emerged from the dog piles with a successful room reservation, but this victory has no meaning if there weren’t tens of thousands more who didn’t succeed. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people I know who were not successful, and in that regard, it does make me feel a little less excited about getting lucky.
Actually, as much of a greedy asshole of a thing it is for me to say it, I’m actually disappointed that I wasn’t able to secure a second room like I did last year. Last year, I was able to secure a multitude of rooms at both the Marriott and the Hyatt, and in the end, those rooms were life-savers for a lot of people I knew and like. In a way, I kind of felt like a room-hoarding hero, and I selfishly cannot say the same this year, because I was only able to secure my own room, and nobody else’s.
But regardless, as it pertains to my own pursuits, today, I am victorious, and I feel good about that. But such gratification would not exist, if the chance for failure were not as high as getting a room at the Marriott on Marriott Day is, every single year.
