In Some Battles, There Are No Winners, Only Losers

Understanding the Risks

“It’s a very risky game you’re playing,” an acquaintance tells me. “I risk a lot, but you are risking more. What makes you so sure you’re going to win? Or that you’re going to come out of this alive? Many don’t. Perhaps you’re better than them, more beautiful, more intelligent. You’re not looking for status or power, you already have that, but… Intelligence is hard to lose but beauty is quickly gone. Be careful not to lose these things before you even begin to live.”

I look at him and think about this. “I don’t play any game where I don’t feel safe. You’ll never know how many games I’ve walked away from. Withdrawn from. Because I felt my opponent was too strong. That I had no chance of victory… Choose your battles according to your strengths. Admit to yourself when you are too weak – this is the key to victory in my view,” I answer.

I am enveloped in a haze of cigarette smoke, but my vision, my purpose in this place seems clear to me. I know it isn’t clear to anyone else. But that isn’t really important.

The Clarity of Purpose

I remember the words of Katarina Kresal, how she said that she never wasted time trying to find herself. She knew who she was and where she wanted to go. She always knew it instinctively. Somewhere in my pounding heart, I can feel my own journey very clearly. I just don’t know how to put it into words (yet).

“Do you think I will be successful in life?” I ask my companion in one of Ljubljana’s most elegant restaurants. The purple-upholstered armchairs and crystal chandeliers listen to my words, the orchids give a unique charm to our discussion, so even after all the luxury of foreign resorts on the Mediterranean, I quickly feel at home again in Ljubljana.

The man sitting opposite me smiles. “Everyone will tell you that you will. I will only say that none of us knows our destiny. Like your grandmother, I sincerely hope that you and all those dear to you will always be the favorites of destiny, the darlings of life. You have all the potential to succeed. Whether or not you realize your potential depends on you, and also on luck. You can never foresee everything. You can never control everything.”

The Price of Victory

I remember a sunny afternoon. Summer in the Slovenian countryside. Golden meadows of tall grass, a forest of alders, the gentle rustle of lime trees.

“The difference between you and other people…” my friend begins. “People are looking for all kinds of things, as one of your interviewees says when talking about people’s reasons for going into politics or business: status, power, a better life, an easier journey. You’re not looking for any of that, nor do you need it. You’re simply playing. Because you like to play. There’s nothing wrong with that. You’ve also won,” she smiles.

“I might have won, but my nerves are shattered,” I say. “Something still doesn’t feel right. Something won’t let me celebrate this victory. I may have won, but I don’t feel happiness.”

“You can’t emerge from every battle with your nerves intact, with your nervous system in perfect shape. Even if you win,” smiles Ruslana. “Perhaps no one tells you that when you’re going into battle, in business, in life. Even if you win, you won’t always win with calm nerves. You won’t always be a happier person. There are some victories that you will never recover from. They will mark you forever. More than a defeat would. In Odessa, you learn to choose your battles. Weapons, blood, money, corruption. Some victories – you ask yourself whether they are worth the price you pay for them. For some they are. For some they aren’t. There is no right or wrong. You have to know your own answers. You have to listen to your own voice.”

A Fragment of Victory

In some battles, there are no winners, only losers. Even when one person waves a white flag and the other raises a victory banner. This is something one must be aware of in business and in life. And, where possible, only join battles where everyone can be a winner. Where every combatant can leave the field with a fragment of victory, a fragment of glory, a fragment of profit. Or where the possibility of this at least exists.

Personally, I think that a certain measure of fear is something that those of us of an impulsive nature need to learn. In order to improve our own well-being and that of society at large. Walking over corpses will destroy you in the end. As Kresal puts it, there are some things you physically cannot stomach. On the other hand, as the mayor of Maribor says, you have to ask yourself what a corpse is. Dead cells, obsolete parts of ourselves – it seems to me vital and necessary to walk over such things. And to live according to the principle that even if dreams are allowed today, tomorrow is a new day.

A New Dawn

Over and over again. A new day. A new life. A new dawn. Arunidevi means the first ray of dawn, the first touch of the morning sun. The red sun on the horizon. I want to always carry this optimism in me. To begin a new life every day. Even if this is sometimes on the other side of the world, in another country, under another name – as Ivan Simić is sometimes tempted to do, or so he says in his editorials.

The Montenegrin sea surges against my body and washes away all that is dead, all that is obsolete, all that has served its function. In this forgotten land of mafias, luxury, megalomaniac yachts, Arab luxury and “Serbian-style” business deals, I find my own peace, I find my ego, I find myself. More than I have ever found myself before.