Life Chess or Life Checkers
I've adopted the saying "I do not play chess with life."
My grandma, Leora, loved chess. She would always want us to play with her and would get excited when we would. I played infrequently, but it was too hard and I could never win. It seemed magic that she always knew what to do. When I'd ask for help and she'd suggest a move or if I were about to move a piece and she would say not to, I would ask why. This always ended up being a mistake since she would then talk about how moving this would lead to that, and then that would cause this other thing and would get me check-mated in a paragraph in which I didn't understand any of the logic or rules. It was all hypotheticals without any basis in physical action and I hated it. I was happy when she realized that we weren't going to play chess with her and moved on to card games. But cards is not what this story is about.
I guess that I could have read the rules and studied up on chess rules and strategy, but I loved checkers far more. It was faster paced. Sometimes I'd get really tricky and set up a double move, but often I would just keep the pace going, be able to chat and understand what was going on and generally was in a better mood in the end.
Thinking about chess with life, I don't think it's useful for me to think 6 moves into the future. I'd love to be able to define different consequences to my decisions as the knight and castle and pawn, but it is never that simple. There isn't a rule book and any strategy that I have ever come up with to be able to predict more than one move into the future have always ended up as a failure. I'm never happy when the outcome of any conversation is more hypothetical instead of action. I'm told this is how it has to be - but I'm not sure that I believe it. Checkers seems such a more reasonable way to handle life. You can't move that many moves ahead because it's a simpler game. And even if it is not a perfect analogy, it keeps me present and keeps the pace going. Besides, I get stressed and shut-down if it seems that someone else knows more strategy and consequences than I do. I would like to think that that was the problem, but even playing chess against someone who is worse at chess than I am, is barely a tolerable experience. I do not like it.
So, maybe checkers is not the way to go, but in the end, it makes me happier to be moving rather than discussing the 50,000 iterations that the game could possibly go.
Maybe I do play chess with life, but I'm no good at it. I know that there will be an onslaught of domino-ed consequences to certain choices and actions, but it's too overwhelming to process and I don't want or can't find the right strategy book to help me. Also, even if it were to be explained to me, I don't know if I would have the patience. I prefer to go with "gut" feelings which are often completely illogical - but it's movement and oftentimes in life, movement is preferred to no movement at all.
My grandma, Leora, loved chess. She would always want us to play with her and would get excited when we would. I played infrequently, but it was too hard and I could never win. It seemed magic that she always knew what to do. When I'd ask for help and she'd suggest a move or if I were about to move a piece and she would say not to, I would ask why. This always ended up being a mistake since she would then talk about how moving this would lead to that, and then that would cause this other thing and would get me check-mated in a paragraph in which I didn't understand any of the logic or rules. It was all hypotheticals without any basis in physical action and I hated it. I was happy when she realized that we weren't going to play chess with her and moved on to card games. But cards is not what this story is about.
I guess that I could have read the rules and studied up on chess rules and strategy, but I loved checkers far more. It was faster paced. Sometimes I'd get really tricky and set up a double move, but often I would just keep the pace going, be able to chat and understand what was going on and generally was in a better mood in the end.
Thinking about chess with life, I don't think it's useful for me to think 6 moves into the future. I'd love to be able to define different consequences to my decisions as the knight and castle and pawn, but it is never that simple. There isn't a rule book and any strategy that I have ever come up with to be able to predict more than one move into the future have always ended up as a failure. I'm never happy when the outcome of any conversation is more hypothetical instead of action. I'm told this is how it has to be - but I'm not sure that I believe it. Checkers seems such a more reasonable way to handle life. You can't move that many moves ahead because it's a simpler game. And even if it is not a perfect analogy, it keeps me present and keeps the pace going. Besides, I get stressed and shut-down if it seems that someone else knows more strategy and consequences than I do. I would like to think that that was the problem, but even playing chess against someone who is worse at chess than I am, is barely a tolerable experience. I do not like it.
So, maybe checkers is not the way to go, but in the end, it makes me happier to be moving rather than discussing the 50,000 iterations that the game could possibly go.
Maybe I do play chess with life, but I'm no good at it. I know that there will be an onslaught of domino-ed consequences to certain choices and actions, but it's too overwhelming to process and I don't want or can't find the right strategy book to help me. Also, even if it were to be explained to me, I don't know if I would have the patience. I prefer to go with "gut" feelings which are often completely illogical - but it's movement and oftentimes in life, movement is preferred to no movement at all.
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