Real Winners Claim a Prize Called Character

Real Winners Claim a Prize Called Character

Have you ever won anything from the code inside a cereal box? Has yours ever been the winning selection from a million paper slip entries? Do you know of anyone who has scored a major prize from a soda cap, candy bar wrapper, Web site or telemarketer’s survey? Yeah, neither have I.

Believe it or not, there are people who have won large sums of money in lotteries and never claimed the cash. A quick Internet search of unclaimed prizes shows that awards in excess of $200,000 still wait on the winners for pay out. Sometimes lottery companies hold the money for a few months, sometimes for a year. Then, the funds go back into state coffers or to special accounts, like the Court Appointed Special Advocate Program, which provides assistance to abused, abandoned and neglected children.

Somehow, I am pretty sure that if I were the official winner of major bucks, I would go to the trouble to claim the prize. In fact, if I were to win so much as a pair of movie tickets, I would likely celebrate like a showboating running back with both feet in the end zone. The only contest I have ever won on luck alone was at a shoe store. You had to name the company mascot. I came up with “Chauncey.” I received one pair of running shoes that made a deeply disturbing noise when I walked. My one and only time to win, I was still a loser.

Winning on luck and winning on skill are two different things, of course. I have entered writing contests. The few times I have done well, it felt great. When I have lost, which is often, it felt like someone dropped a ton of bricks on my ego and crushed the remnants of my self-esteem into the ground with their evil, dream-killing boots. At least when all you have at stake is a box top and a postage stamp, losing isn’t such a big deal.

As a parent, I try to help my kids understand that winning isn’t really what life is all about, even though it sure can feel that way much of the time. The world loves a winner, a grand prize, a trophy engraved with “First Place.” We hail our champions and forget second place, even if only a millisecond or a hundredth of a point separates them. Those are the winners hailed on TV and in the press. I like to think about the ones I see in less conspicuous places. They are the ones I hope my children remember, too.

Every day, someone you know will cross an unseen finish line. They will complete chemotherapy. They will read their first book. They will learn to walk again. They will claim 30 days, clean and sober. They will get up, every day, and tend to a dying loved one. They will serve their country. They will smile at a stranger simply because they recall how good it felt when someone smiled at them. They will win, again and again, in the silent obscurity of everyday heroes.

I know plenty of people who reach lofty places through deception and less than honorable means. Lots of folks see them as winners. This is one of the hardest lessons to teach my children, that just because you claim the prize doesn’t necessarily make you top notch. In the contests that truly matter, character always wins. Contrary to what society often promotes, it isn’t where you finish, but how you run the race.

“You can’t win if you don’t buy a ticket,” they say. I’ll buy that. I have never known a cereal box winner, never ridden in a car with the magic key, and never claimed so much as a consolation prize from a scratch-and-win card. But I have known real winners. They purchase their tickets with hearts of gold and never fail to claim a prize called honor. No matter what the scoreboard says, they always come out on top.