Addicted to Losing

The curious thing about addicts is their predictability. The heroin addict seeks oblivion through injection; the alcoholic drowns in amber liquid; the sex addict chases fleeting moments of connection. But the most fascinating specimen of modern times is the person addicted to losing. A person so thoroughly modern that previous generations wouldn't have recognized his pathology.

I see them on social media, these professional failures. Young men filming themselves approaching women on streets, in malls, in coffee shops, not because they desire connection, but because they've unknowingly developed a taste for humiliation. The woman's polite dismissal is the hit they're seeking, even if they haven’t yet realized it. They've learned to metabolize rejection into content, transforming their degradation into entertainment for their audience.

The architecture of their addiction is precise. They ensure failure through their methods. Approaching strangers with rehearsed lines, filming the interaction like some amateur pornographer, reducing human connection to a numbers game. The comments are filled with "Shoot your shot", as success with women is merely a statistical probability. As if dignity was a worthless currency in the economy of attention.

The profound irony is that authentic connection, the kind that alters the course of a life, is never found through rehearsed lines or staged encounters. It arrives like a natural disaster, unplanned and devastating in its intensity.

The same pattern emerges in the corporate world. I watch as the recently laid off send thousands of identical resumes into the digital void. Each rejection email is a small dose of their preferred poison. They've convinced themselves that this is how success works. That if they simply endure enough rejection, a job will eventually arrive as some delayed karmic payment. Yet anyone who has achieved anything of significance knows that the positions that reshape careers are never found on job boards. They materialize through connections, through reputation, through work that speaks louder than any resume.

Then we have the modern day gamblers and sports bettors. They don't gamble to win, that's the crucial misunderstanding. They gamble to lose. Each loss is a step closer to their desired state of total obliteration. The betting apps on their phones are really just sophisticated self-harm devices, delivering measured doses of financial and psychological damage. It makes them feel alive. Yes, you might win some money gambling, enough to keep the illusion in tact, but you'll never get rich. The house's mathematical advantage isn't just a calculation; it's an immutable law of the universe.

And finally we have the eternal patient. You'll find them in therapy offices across major cities, clutching their “trauma” like rare jewels. Week after week, they recount their traumas, their anxieties, their disappointments. Not to heal, but to perfect their performance of brokenness. They've transformed therapy into a form of entertainment, their personal struggles into a never-ending Netflix series where they're both protagonist and victim.

These professional patients don't want solutions. Solutions would rob them of their identity. They seek the comfort of diagnosis, the warm embrace of clinical terminology, the sympathetic nod of a therapist who's being paid to care. "I'm working on myself," they like to tell themselves, as if the mere act of paying someone to listen to their problems was equivalent to something meaningful. They collect mental health terms as badges of honour, each new diagnosis a fresh episode in their ongoing drama.

The truth they haven’t yet realized is that we are who we are. No amount of weekly sessions will fundamentally alter the cards we've been dealt. But accepting this would mean giving up the comforting illusion of impending transformation, abandoning the social currency that comes with being perpetually "in progress." And so they continue their weekly performances, paying for the privilege of victimhood, treating their unchangeable nature as something that can be fixed if only they talk about it enough. They'd rather spend years and fortunes trying to reshape their fundamental character than learn to play their actual hand with whatever dignity they can muster.

These people who are addicted to losing have perfected the art of controlled failure. They pursue objectives they don't truly want, using methods guaranteed to fail, then wear these failures with pride. "At least I tried," they like tell themselves, not understanding that their attempts were designed specifically to prevent success.

The true embarrassment isn't in the losing, it's in the deliberate selection of pursuits that mean nothing to them. They chase women they don't care for, apply for jobs they don't want to do, bet money on games that don’t matter. Because if you never pursue what you truly desire, you never have to face genuine loss. You never have to confront the possibility that you might not be good enough for what your heart actually wants. When the stakes are truly high, when you're reaching for something that matters to your very core, failure leaves a wound that no amount of validation, therapy, or money can heal.

This is the terminal condition of our age: millions of people addicted to losing at games they never cared to win in the first place. They will continue this dance of deliberate defeat, these elaborate performances of effort without intention that allow them to say they tried without ever risking their hearts.

The pattern will persist because it serves its purpose. Society requires these professional losers, these career failures, these perpetual victims. They provide the necessary contrast that allows others to feel successful. They populate the lower ranks of our corporate hierarchies, fill the dating apps with activity, keep the gambling companies and therapists profitable. They are as essential to the functioning of our system as any other addict.

And so these losers will continue. Another day, another filmed rejection, another failed job application, another lost bet, another therapy session. The machinery of voluntary defeat marches on, processing human dignity into digital content, transforming authentic desire into mechanical routine, converting genuine pain into comfortable numbness. This is neither tragedy nor triumph. It is simply the logical conclusion of a society that has forgotten what it means to want something badly enough that losing would break your heart.

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