Winning Streaks

This is not WoW related.
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FYI: This is very opinionated, and subjective. I do not intend to change the world with this post, simply to incite some discussion, and see if there is something i'm missing, or clarify/define/refine my thoughts further.

The past few days, i've spent some time thinking about Winning Streaks, and their affects on our perception of Victories and Defeats.

Dictionary.com defines Winning Streak as: "A series of consecutive successes, a run of good luck"

I suppose that is a definition that is self explanatory, much like 'dying' is pretty simple to define, but more complex to explain, and the circumstances add further to the overall story.

I, like many (I would venture even 'most' or 'all'), of you, have had multiple times that could be defined as Winning Streaks, so this isn't an uncommon or unfamiliar idea.

But sitting at work, between calls, I was pondering the nature of the Winning Streak, and came to a few conclusions.

1) The Winning Streak is less defined by the streak, and more defined by that which ends it.

Consider any time where you had a streak of good, wins, victories, whatever. I use the example of: 'not being late to work for 4 months, and then forgetting to grab my badge from my car, and ending up 2 minutes late.'

Sure, 2 minutes is nothing, and after 4 months of on-time awesomeness, i'm not fearful of my job or anything. But that doesn't change that when I sat there after logging into the phone queues, I was absolutely consumed by how frustrated and disappointed I was. It didn't matter that it was 4 months of 'victories' before the 1 day of 'defeat', what mattered was the defeat, and the implications.

I submit to you a similar situation of the Minnesota Vikings, and of Gary Anderson's 1998 season as the Kicker. The Vikings had a great year. 15-1, only losing by 3 points to the Buccaneers in week 9. (Their pre-season record was flawless too.) They went in on a high of winning many games, and a few Playoff games too. Gary Anderson had the only perfect kicker season, in NFL history, that year. And we get to the final few minutes of a close game, and Gary goes up to kick .... and misses. Ultimately, this led to a tie, and then the Falcons' kicker made a similar (also 38 yd) field goal, for the win.

Now, sure, that moment was slightly more important than others, that maybe missing earlier in the game would have mattered 'less', but it was still a miss. Gary Anderson's perfect season was summed up, not by the many successful kicks, but by the one he missed. This leads me to conclusion #2.

2) The Winning Streak leaves the victories in the dust, the 'big picture streak' being more important than the individual wins.

Sure, every single victory that season by the Vikings was equally exciting, and a fun thing to watch,.. but when I sit and think about it, I think about how the victories were less 'woohoo for a victory!' and more 'yes! The streak is still intact!'

I don't think about the 80 days I was on time to work, as individual 'victories', but rather focused on 'another day, another on time'. Not because it is impossible to celebrate each individual victory, but because it becomes swept up in the overall picture of the bigger streak, and almost ends up overshadowed, losing it's significance as a victory, to the 'another notch' mentality of a streak.

This tends to lend credence to the first conclusion, as the loss of the 'streak' seems many many times to far outweigh the success of the many victories prior. I guarantee I didn't go to bed that night thinking 'man, great season!', but rather 'man, if only they'd won....'

To conclude,...

I don't think Winning Streaks are inherantly bad, but I think that it is difficult to keep sight of the little victories, when there are so many in a row... and ultimately difficult to remember them at all, when there comes a loss. My feeling is, if we celebrated the individual victories as much as the overall streak, that the inevitable loss wouldn't be felt as much, or overshadow that which came prior, nearly to the extent that it can and does.

It kind of goes in line with something else i've been pondering,.. the idea that it is impossible to have good without bad, as you would have nothing to define the former by, without the latter. A victory becomes less important, or less celebrate-worthy, (in perception), without remembering a loss that was overcome.