“Every man should lose a battle in his youth, so he does not lose a war when he is old.”
That line doesn’t glorify failure. It explains it.
We spend a lot of time trying to protect people—especially the young—from losing.
From pain.
From hard truths.
From the kind of moments that leave a mark.
But the truth is both simpler and harder at the same time…
If you never learn how to lose when the stakes are manageable, you won’t know how to stand and deliver when the stakes are not as manageable.
I didn’t learn this lesson from a philosophy book.
I learned it from experiencing loss very early in life.
When I lost my father at age four, I didn’t have the proper language to describe what I was feeling.
I didn’t have a framework for grief, or strength, or what came next. I just had a void—and the quiet understanding that life had changed in a way that wouldn’t be undone and had to be endured.
What I did have, serendipitously, was a story.
A young boy who lost his parents to an armed robber in an alleyway.
A boy who could have been negatively defined by that moment—but chose not to be.
I think the photo that opens this post gives you the idea of what story I’m alluding to.
That story gave me something I didn’t know I needed…
Permission to feel the weight of loss… and a model for what to do with the feeling.
There’s a Stoic idea that matters here…
You don’t control what happens to you.
You control what you become because of what happens to you.
Loss, hardship, disappointment—these are not detours. They are part of your path.
The only question is whether you treat them as endings… or as instruction.
The early battles are not there to defeat you.
They are there to introduce you to reality.
To teach you:
- That pain is survivable
- That emotions don’t have to control your actions
- That meaning can be built, even when it isn’t obvious
Years later, I see that lesson more clearly.
Not just in my own life—but in what I choose to pass on.
I’m teaching my younger grandson to read those same stories.
Not because I want him to experience loss.
But because I want him to understand, early, that life will test him—and that he will have the capacity to meet that test.
Stories give him a safe place to encounter hard truths:
- Fear
- Loss
- Responsibility
- Resilience
They give him language before life demands it.
They give him a framework before he needs one.
We live in a time that often confuses comfort with strength.
They are not the same.
Comfort avoids the battle.
Strength is forged in battle.
And here’s the part most people often miss…
The goal is not to seek out suffering.
The goal is to learn from it when it inevitably arrives.
Because it will.
For all of us.
Looking back, I don’t wish away the battle.
I understand it.
It gave me something I couldn’t have gotten any other way:
Perspective.
Discipline.
Clarity about what actually matters.
It taught me how to carry weight without letting it crush me.
And that lesson doesn’t just stay with you—it shapes how you lead, how you decide, how you show up for the people who come after you.
The real danger isn’t losing early.
The real danger is reaching the defining moments of your life—your health, your family, your legacy—and not knowing how to respond because you’ve never been tested.
That’s how wars are lost.
Not from lack of ability.
But from lack of preparation.
And luck tends to favor the prepared.
If there’s anything worth passing on, it’s this…
You don’t need to navigate life with an undefeated record.
You need to be prepared.
Prepared to face difficulty without panic.
Prepared to think clearly when emotions run high.
Prepared to build meaning when life doesn’t hand it to you.
Prepared to stand and deliver.
The battle will come.
It’s better to meet it early… learn from it… and carry that lesson forward.
So when the war comes—you already know who you are.
As the late, great Bruce Lee once said:
Don’t pray for an easy life; pray for the strength to endure a hard one.
-The Rational Ram
The Rational Ram 