Show, don't tell with example

Absolutely! I understand

 

@GingerCoffee - I did have one wee niggle with your first example in your OP.

Winning is important to me. It doesn’t matter to me what I do, so long as I win.

If this statement has come from a story written in first person, it's not 'telling' in the same sense as it would be if it were written in third.

Winning is important to him. It doesn't matter to him what he does, so long as he wins.

In the first person example, the narrator is stating things as he sees them. How he sees himself. This is characterization. He would say that. You would say that too, if you believed it of yourself. I'd say the showing/telling thing doesn't apply in the first person.

The third person example is different, because the narrator (or writer) is not stating something about how he sees himself. Instead, the narrator/writer is telling the reader what they should think. It's subtle, but it's different. I find the first statement quite engaging. In fact, it might make a good opener to a story. Winning is important to me. It doesn't matter to me what I do, so long as I win. Great opener.

However, I can't see the third person version making any great impression on a reader. A few more sentences in that vein, and you'd probably want to just move on.

 

But isn't the part where he's thinking to himself also telling? In order to be true 'showing,' shouldn't we see what he did while he was cheating? We're finding out about that after the fact... when he tells us about it.

Of course, in order to truly see rather than hear about his cheating and winning, we're talking two scenes (or bits of scenes) to fully show it.

Still, I get your point. Just wanted to point that out.

 

I thought "telling" was basically unintentionally slipping into omniscient narration.