"Our need to be "greater than" or "less than" has been a defense against toxic shame. A shameful act was committed upon us. The perpetrator walked away, leaving us with the shame. We absorbed the notion that we are somehow defective. To cover for this we constructed a false self, a masked self. And it is this self that is the overachiever or the dunce, the tramp or the puritan, the powermonger or the pathetic loser."
"Because," he said in an even voice, "you're used to winning, so you don't even think about how, every time there's a game, both sides get that 'rah, rah, team' speech from their coaches both sides hear 'you're the best!' 'You've got to win!' 'You're the greatest!' But half of the people playing that game are going to walk away losers. Half!"
"You're a dead man". I hear his voice again, and I see the words on my face when I get back in the cab and look in the rearview mirror. It makes me think of my life, my nonexistent accomplishments and my overall abilities in incompetence. "A dead man", I think. He's not far wrong."
When a guy goes out there and kills somebody, he might look at himself as the winner. But in truth he's also a loser, because now he would be lost in the system. If you were listening to the news recently, some people you know well are doing 45, and 64 years for murder. They might have won their fight, but they lost their lives to the system. Franco 'Co' Bethel, former gang leader and right hand man to Scrooge.