I spent the weekend at a swimming meet and noticed something about how people react to losing. It reminded me a lot of how grown-ups talk about election results.
So I was at swimming sports this week. Long day. Wet hair for about seven hours. And in between races I started noticing how different kids handled losing.
Some kids climbed out, shook the winner's hand, and immediately started thinking about the next race. Some kids climbed out and instantly had a Reason. The lane was slow. The starter was off. Someone splashed them. Their goggles. Always the goggles.
And I thought - this is exactly how grown-ups talk about elections.
When your party wins, the system worked, the voters were wise, democracy is healthy, what a beautiful day.
When your party loses, the media was biased, the other side lied, the polls were rigged, people were tricked. Same election. Different goggles.
I'm not saying every complaint is a Reason with a capital R. Sometimes the starter genuinely is off. Sometimes the media genuinely does a bad job. But it's worth noticing the pattern in yourself: am I upset because something was actually unfair, or am I upset because I lost?
The kids at swimming sports who got faster across the season were almost always the ones who could tell the difference. They saved their energy for the things they could actually fix - their start, their turn, their breathing - instead of spending it on the things they couldn't.
I think that's the move for politics too. After the 2026 election, half the country is going to be disappointed. That's just maths. The interesting question is what they do on the Monday morning after. Argue about the goggles, or work on the turn.
Anyway. Last in freestyle. Going to work on this for next year....