Life is a game

Life is a game of unfairness, with trials, pitfalls, and unexpected challenges. It can be rather good for some, and the game does allow for pockets of satisfaction and glee. The game has rules imposed on you whether you like them or not. Rules written down by governments and unwritten rules that society expects you to abide by. At no point do you get sat down and asked if you are happy to abide to these rules. We simply accept them. Some will undoubtedly try and get these rules changed. Whilst the rules of the land become ever more convoluted filling countless tomes, the rules of society flex with fashion. These unwritten rules are there to differentiate you from a pawn, patsy or someone purporting to be a pioneer.

The game of life appears at first to be a team game, but those that work with others act more in collusion then co-operation. We collude with others for group advantage paying most attention to the benefits any co-operation brings us personally. That selfish thing pervades all aspects of life. There are lots that will sacrifice you to help their position. They will throw you under a bus to gain a petty advantage.

In this game of life, we will be faced with many dilemmas, many troubles, and a multitude of challenges. We have to choose what to do at a given point in time with the information we have. Sometimes choice seems illusionary or elusive. It felt like we had a choice, but the options were limited by what others allow. You certainly didn’t get a choice of where to play this game of life. Nor did you decide when. Nor do you get any say in what the starting stake was to be. You had no choice in how abled or disabled you were to be. Whatever cards you are dealt, you do get those choices that differentiate us. Certain choices separate the brave from the stupid, the astute from the acquiescent.

Life can go by in a frustrating blur, so choose your battles wisely. Is it worth the bother fighting every inconvenience, every irritation, every altercation? Time and time again we think about time with our internal clock slowing down the older we get. The slowing down of our internal clock makes time seem to pass quicker. A minute really seems like 50 seconds when we are old and grey, whereas if you ask a child to count a minute, they reach around 70 before that minute is up. We also notice that our experience of time sure changes when we are occupied. Distractions devour our allotted time.

All games have a start, a middle of sorts and come to an end. You know full well that your life will come to an end but that doesn’t put you off playing. Not at all. We don’t dwell on it too much. The end can come abruptly when you get taken out and replaced. You are substituted. Your loss is someone else’s gain. Some else takes your place and happily for them, gets to prove their worth.

What is a successful result you may ask. What counts as a victory? Teams compete with one another in international sporting events. The completion is fierce hence those awarded a gold medal seemed quite pleased with themselves. The ones that got silver were not. They appeared quite forlorn. They stood there dejected whilst others next to them were jumping for joy. The ones jumping in jubilation got bronze. Bronze seemed brilliant to them. You see, it matters to the individual where they come. To some, second place is success, to others, managing third is a miracle to be truly celebrated. The smile about it for years on end and get others to marvel at the fantastic third-place trophy on their shelf. Some have been 7-0 down in a football match and didn’t give up. They were chuffed to see the final scoreboard show 7-1. They got a goal against a formidable team. They showed them something - a little that meant a lot.

When you are asked, “how do you see yourself in five years’ time”, we are expected to say that we will pass this and that, we will have a house or something, and our career will be advanced four squares on the game of life board. What we end up wanting is to be how we were five years prior. Younger, better looking, more hope, more belief and less tarnished. Time is an unnecessary evil. You get old regardless. Wishing this, wishing that is unhelpful. We must play with the hand we are dealt. Possibly bluffing, playing as if we had certain cards hoping that we don’t get caught out. We can respond, react to events rather than wish for things to be different for us. If the market falls, then that is an opportunity. We can buy more. We could sell to buy back for less or wait it out rather than panic. The test of a game is to see how well you exploit the situation no matter how sour the cream has got.

Hope bedevils us. It feels so much better if there is some hope, some prospect of getting close to that beloved aim. To have any prospect of getting there, we need to see a path towards it. Hence why we say every long journey starts with first step. Once you take that step, hope carries us. I pray that it is the right step for you. A step towards what you truly want. Disappointment lurks and we eventually realise that we got it all wrong. What we truly want was quite different to what we thought we wanted in earlier life. Thus, a reckoning will cast a shadow over our days. You re-evaluate what you want. Turmoil can begin.