Winning isn't everything, or is it

I recently finished the book of Enders Game that was written by Orson Scott Card. Enders game was an amazing book. It was one of the best, if not the best fiction book I have ever read. In the book, Ender plays battle games constantly, and he never loses. He does this by having an objective, and then completing it.

What I thought of when I read this book is that by winning, you can actually lose. In a society that is driven by competition and winning, everything we do seems to have some form of classification on who wins and who loses. Luckily if you know the game and how to play it you can out smart the player and the game. You become the winner even if you're the declared loser. It's knowing how your cards work, and then playing them at the right time. It's possible to do this in just about anything, and especially in work. One example is if two people have to accomplish a certain amount of work, and their job is not finished until the work is completed. Why not create a game to compete to see who finishes first. You race the other person, and all along you're planning on letting him win. The work gets done, you finish, and it's a win/win situation. He feels like he beat you, and yet you finished your goals and he got the work done.

As a society we thrive on competition and always trying to beat the other person, company, or nation. Why not change the rules to be used to your benefit. Is it cheating if the other person agrees to it. If you let him win the spoken goal, he is declared the winner, but you actually won. Your objective wasn't to do the most work, but to finish your beginning objective. Is the winner the person that finishes the games objective, or is the winner the person that plays the game how he wants. Winning is a matter of perspective. The true winner is the person that 'plays' the game.