Winning the battle, losing the war

The following passage was taken from the book 12 Rules for Life by Jordan B. Peterson, a good reminder on how long-term success may come at the cost of short-term losses, if you can call it that:

You might consider judging your success across all the games you play. Imagine that you are very good at some, middling at others, and terrible at the remainder. Perhaps that’s how it should be. You might object: I should be winning at everything! But winning at everything might only mean that you’re not doing anything new or difficult. You might be winning but you’re not growing, and growing might be the most important form of winning. Should victory in the present always take precedence over trajectory across time?

From 12 Rules for Life by Jordan B. Peterson, emphasis mine

With the amount of “losses” I’d been taking recently, and how out of my element I’d been feeling, this passage was an important reminder that these are times for learning, preparatory work for when the tests really matter.