What is a loser?

"Loser" is a purely subjective term applied to a person whom the speaker believes is inferior to him in some way. It has no concrete meaning, and as such is at least bad vocabulary even when it is not being used maliciously.

Spencer Pratt.

YouTube - Spencer Pratt on Letterman

A loser is one who loses. See Detroit Lions (2008).

"It is not death that we wish to avoid, but life that we wish to live."

- Atlas Shrugged

Beyond the literal meaning, what is a loser, philosophically and psychologically? It is someone whose goal is to avoid losing; someone who is more concerned with avoiding loss than with actively winning.

Happy, victorious people live passionately with glory and triumph in their sights. They are pursuing greatness. Depressed, miserable people are the ones who instead dwell on and feed off of their own misery and self-pity.

Socially, "losers" are the people who would rather complain about the boss, and about the government, and about the world, instead of doing something positive. They are the people who are more concerned with dragging up the demons of past relationships, or their childhood, rather than celebrating opportunities and enlightened potential.

"Losers" are the people who spend most of their time thinking about what they have lost, or what they do not have, or what they may lose in the future, or what they may never have. "Winners" are the people who spend most of their time thinking about what they have not lost, what they do have, what they may gain, and their higher potential.

Simply, winners are optimists, and losers are pessimists.

If you are a loser and someone calls you a loser, you will crawl further into your shell and become more bitter, more alienated, more loathing of self and others. If you are a winner and someone calls you a loser, you may feel humbled or humiliated, but you will not resign. You will be objective, investigative, inquisitive. You will try to turn that negative into a positive. You will try to turn negative feedback into a motivator for self-improvement.

People refer to others as "losers" not because said person is the merriam-webster definition of a loser, but because that person radiates a kind of negative energy. People view as losers those who seem to conjure around them a mood or atmosphere, a vibe of loss or negativity. People who hate their lives or hold a pessimistic view toward the world crash the party and kill the momentum of those who might otherwise be cheerful; and for that reason they become known as losers. They are called losers because they inspire an attitude and feeling of loss.

I'm the perfect example of this. Nearly 25, still living at home, working a job that pays very little and isn't looked at favorably, and I got dumped by my girlfriend. Need I say more?