A column by Lovell Beaulieu in Saturday’s Des Moines Register is titled, “Hard Lesson: Losing is part of life.” It certainly is.

We all know the pain and frustration of losing. We probably all fought physically or verbally with siblings, cousins or friends at an early age, and we probably all ended up crying mercy (or just crying our heads off until someone took pity on us or screamed at us to shut up) at some point. We have all lost a game, a coin toss or a contest. Some of us lose more often than others, but we all lose.

In his column about losing, Beaulieu discussed the 4-A Boys State Basketball Championship. The game ended when a controversial call by the officials caused Hoover High School to lose by one point. Imagine a situation in which you will know, for the rest of your life, that you lost because of one controversial foul. Pretty heartbreaking, I suppose. It is one thing to lose because of your own inadequacies; another to have no control over your loss.

After all, winning is everything, right?

I believe it is not everything; that my life does not hinge on winning. I can play a basketball game with friends and not even keep score. As long as I am having fun, I don’t especially care if I win or lose.

You can probably tell that I was never one of those people that coaches said was “a player.” I didn’t run until I puked; I didn’t give up my life so I could practice 24 hours a day. I love sports, I am competitive, and I play hard, but I think there is more to life than winning.

There, the truth is out in the open. I am not a sports fanatic, one of those people who yell at their own kids from the stands until they cry. Nope, that’s not me.

I don’t buy all the little sports analogies to life, because most situations in real life do not boil down to winning or losing. Life is NOT a game.

For instance, Kauffman and McMahan, the two men who robbed a bank and murdered two women last summer in Iowa, are going to spend the rest of their lives in prison. Did they lose, because they were caught and charged? Does that mean that we won? Do the families of Island Schultz and Barbara Garber win when the men are put behind bars?

I think you can see that everybody loses in this situation. We lost two innocent women, and we lost two guilty men.

The war between Americans who support President Clinton and those who wish to impeach him is a losing situation, also. The damage is done. Clinton’s personal life reflects badly on all United States citizens, making us all losers. We elected the man, after all. The question now is whether or not his choices in personal matters make him a poor president, as well as a poor person. (Or maybe, the real question is whether anyone else would be a better president.)

Why do we all fixate on winning? In our society, you supposedly win if you are beautiful, thin, tan, young and rich.

Yet, you can be none of those things and still be happy. You can be all of those things and be so unhappy you commit suicide.

The key to life is not whether you win or lose. That much I know.

Catherine Conover is a senior in liberal studies from Mapleton.