All Hail the Underdog!

Un-der-dog (n.) Person or a group popularly expected to lose.

What is it about this word that all of us are ready to rally behind the unfancied. Someone who has no chance is the one many (usually the neutrals, with nothing to lose or gain) want to win, to bask in glory even when all odds are against them and all experts have written them off.

Still from 2007 movie 'Underdog'

I think it is because all of us deep inside feel like ‘an underdog’ in this world. No matter what we achieve, our mind has a weird fault somewhere in the wiring which always shows us what we have not achieved. But this is something out of our control. It’s a basic human trait to keep accomplishing things (along with eating, drinking and breathing). It is this trait that keeps us moving forward in life.

We all want the underdog to perform and trounce the fancied opposition because we all feel in his win we can find hope, satisfaction, a sense of fulfillment, a feeling of victory for ourselves that we sometimes don’t get to feel in life. We are never the fancied contender. In all the challenges we face, we are the underdogs. No one (nature, god or even we ourselves) expects us to win and this is what should give us the hunger to perform, to come out on top. We might not be successful but we do have to give it our best shot.

So the next time you feel like all odds are against you, believe in yourselves and take inspiration from the Indian team that beat the mighty West Indies in ’83, or the Costa Rica team that beat the English last year, or more recently the Bangladesh team that beat English in the ongoing World Cup (or any other example you can think of, point being never lose hope). Bestselling author Malcolm Gladwell had this to say

“The fact that being an underdog changes people in ways that we often fail to appreciate. It opens doors and creates opportunities and enlightens and permits things that might otherwise have seemed unthinkable.”

India defied odds to lift the 1983 Cricket World Cup

Take inspiration and give it your 100%. As the saying goes, fortune favours the brave.

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