Sister Jean-Delores Schmidt is a 98 year old nun who serves as a chaplain for  the Loyola University basketball team and travels with them.  Defying odds and expectations, the team earned a spot in the final four of the men’s basketball tournament.  During the celebration, a reporter asked Sister Jean, “What did you give up for lent?”  “Losing” she replied with a smile.  Think about that for a moment.

Consider how many of our individual and world “losses” stem from  self-defeating attitudes.  Many could be “wins” if we would recognize opportunities for success and take advantage of them.  Individual health crises and disabilities are often “losses” arising from tobacco use, chemical dependency,  overeating or other behaviors.  I’m sure that you can think of additional ways to give up losing by changing our behaviors.  Yet most of us have at least one self-defeating habit.

A similar losing mentality is often present in our group behaviors.  Ranging from a basketball team to a nation and to humanity as a whole  we have a hard time getting rid of habits that make us losers when we could be winners.  What is it that we need to help us recognize and fulfill our own potential?

When President Kennedy challenged Americans to go to the moon and back, we were unable to reliably launch a small satellite into orbit.  Less than a decade later, we had been to the moon.  Most Americans supported it as a worthwhile goal and had confidence that we could do it.  The process was messy.  There were rockets that fell over sideways and exploded on the launch pad.  There were tragic deaths. But we persevered; we learned from each defeat and we understood ourselves to be a nation of winners.  Not only did we see ourselves as winners; we were convinced that we deserved to be winners.

We Americans perceived ourselves as good, hard-working and capable people.  In many respects, we became who we believed that we were.  We believed that our older citizens should have health care so we created Medicare.  We believed that all of us are created equal so we passed civil rights laws.  We believed that everyone should enjoy clean, safe water and air so we created the Environmental Protection Agency.  When we believed that we deserved good things,  our vision became our reality.

While we were on our winning streak, we looked at situations like polluted water, seniors who couldn’t afford health care, and our desire to go to the moon as opportunities rather than as problems.  Today we see problems that overwhelm us rather than the opportunities that accompany them.  When we feel overwhelmed by our problems our response is either to do nothing or to find someone to blame.  Those approaches have put us on a losing streak.

As a nation and as individuals we have massive opportunities on our horizon.  Our opioid crisis is part of an addiction crisis that seems to paralyze us.  We’re setting new records for deaths, prosecutions and locking people up.  We’re blaming the drug companies, distributors and addicts while ignoring opportunities.  Residential addiction treatment is less expensive than jail.  We have an opportunity to treat the addicts and salvage many of their lives while actually saving money.  Doing that will also create jobs.  That is a way to give up losing and resume winning.

Automation and artificial intelligence are replacing human work in just about every kind of industry and service.  They produce more goods and service for less money.  We have the opportunity to provide education and support for those who are displaced so that they can earn a living doing jobs that the machines haven’t yet learned.  That process will create more total wealth and another opportunity – to assure that the new wealth benefits all Americans rather than punishing the displaced while the owners take all of the gain.

Climate change, gun deaths, and other problems abound.  Inside each of them is an opportunity if we can find it.  Like Sister Jean, let’s give up losing and the self-defeating attitudes that cause it.  Let’s replace losing with winning by taking advantage of our opportunities and believing in ourselves and our nation.  Believing – That’s the stuff that resurrections are made of.