We all have seen horse races; it is one of the oldest sports, which was there since, ancient civilizations of Greek, Rome, Babylon, Arabia and Egypt. However, I would suggest horse races have been there ever since two men, started riding two horses' side by side, for the purpose of fun, for adventure and for survival. Where are we standing today in this fascinating sport, once which was a 'sport of the kings'?.
We have different kinds of horse races, fast, slow and elegant. Flat racing, jump racing, endurance racing are a few. And we have opportunities to watch them on site, for the prestige and on television for the poor, and even read about yesterday's races on paper. Even if you are a mathematician, or a programmer you would have to solve a horse racing problem at some point in your life, and it can come as a google interview question.
There are some captivating things about races, in general. Imagine when there is a race of eight horses, (or even more as in google interview question) how many winners you would get after the race? Obviously, what a silly question, one winner, second and third place right? Now, how many non-winners would be made by the racing. (This is not a question for betting on horses, as rules of betting are different than horse racing itself. Win, Place, Show, Across the board)
There will be seven non winners, and five without any place. Now look at the jockeys and owners, as horses seem to be less affected by winning and losing. There will be seven unhappy jockeys. And we can always predict there will be more unhappy losers than happy winners each and every race. Even if it is a race between two people someone is going to be looser, so probability of unhappy Loosers in any race is 50% or more. More is more as most of the races involve more than two participants.
Let's look at our lives. We are involved in races in our lives most of the time. In classrooms, there will be a race to the academic excellence, sports excellence, and so many others. Even art or music or creative writing has become competitions. Even climbing a wall or finding a cure to covid 19 becomes a race at right circumstances. And if we apply our inevitable conclusion of our horse race to these situations, we will have something to think about. There will be more losers and unhappy people at the end of every race. And of course, we asked the same question from our teachers when we were young, when we were crying when we couldn't win the chess game, the running game or the quiz competition. And we got our answer, that we have to learn to lose and endure the pain of losing as life is full of games. Life actually is all about games.
What about not participating at all. Would it be a nice choice? Of course, When we choose not to participate, we will never win. We will never achieve fame we will never enjoy the price; we will never be remembered. But we would be guaranteed 100% that we will not lose and be heartbroken.
I suggest we all should look back at ourselves, before stepping up for the challenge. Sometimes it is wise to run away from problems, how cowardly it may seem, because you are guaranteed, there will be no loss.
Two boys went to the army, oh friends they were.
One was brave, the other was cowardly.
One fought hard, other couldn't fire the gun.
One ran forward, while the other stayed in the drain.
One was shot in the heart, Other played dead behind the enemy.
And buried the brave, when the sun set in the west.
Thank you for reading horse races and rat races.
You may also like reading C++ computers and programming to life
コメント