Life doesn’t give folks a break. Nor does it test you. Nor is there any such thing as good luck, fate, or destiny.

On the other hand, Colette, your thoughts become things. Which pretty much means you get to rule your world.

Better than winning the lottery,

The Universe

Theme Thursday has rolled around again and I really didn’t have an idea of what the heck I could say about games….until I played a few as I try to do each day. These days I play a game or two or six of spider solitaire, have about 5 or six games of scrabble or lexulous on the go with friends far away as Kimy in Cleaveland or as near as Michael who is either across the table or upstairs in the office.And then just to add another dimension I play a game or two of Hearts with East, West, and North. Now my theory is that all these games are good for the neurons…and mine need all the help they can get with the concussion that just won’t go away…even after 5 years!But with all these games I have been playing I have also found that there is a whole lot of life lessons to be found…and they have come to play a big part of my philosophy of life…In our big world there is so many different philosophies and theologies…there are religions, there is new age mysticism, there is so much different gobbly gook to help one believe and much of the gobbly gook is so out there that it is so easy to disbelieve. Not to mention all the different ologies…that help us to put a name on this or that…for in this world we all seem to be searching for the clues to help us live a good life…and in this world so many of us fall short. And when we do we have questions…why?And what makes the question of why even more painful is why when we followed the teachings of religions, the laws of the lands, the experts in their fields, the motivators and the innovators and heck maybe even Oprah we still fall short, we still have troubles, we are going backwards, we have tragedies…or worse.So just what have I learned from playing these games?From playing Hearts with the dastardly North, East and West I learned that depending on how many things we can control…health, friends, ethnicity, financial position, education, where we live, job, family we really are left to the luck of the draw. If we were lucky to be born with good health, in a good family in a nice neighbourhood and were the predominate ethnicity in our city, country we should have a little bit easier time living our life.The less things we have in our control the more danger we are in to being affected by the forces that can bring us down. And this is not all for life like hearts takes more energy, more thought, more care and has more risks when we are left holding and playing the cards we are dealt and we can’t pass some of our junk on to the next player.From playing Spider Solitaire I have come to believe that maybe the whole point to spider solitaire is not to get a great score because really the shine of the win does fade…maybe the whole point is to keep moving the cards and if you are able to keep moving you will finish…Yes finishing the game is the whole point to playing! and maybe that is the secret to life as well… keep moving don’t worry if you fail. Don’t worry if it didn’t turn out completely like you expected. Don’t get stuck…finish the game…learn, live, laugh, love…Getting stuck in Spider Solitaire means the game is truly over and maybe this is true in life too.And just what did I learn with playing Scrabble and Lexulous?

1. Get rid of those terrible letters as soon as possible…and maybe this is good advice in life too…clear up those messes whether they be financial, or poor health or bad relationships for once those difficult things are done away with the “game” is so much less stressful and much easier to play.
2. When you play the game to mess someone else up (prevent them from using that triple letter score or blocking that big letter Z) you usually limit your moves as well…So when we are living our lives we should not worry about others but just live our lives.
3. Even when you think there are no moves to be made…there is usually one even if it is a small one…and better to make a small word than be stuck. Even if our lives aren’t as big as we would like…we aren’t stuck unless we just sit there and do nothing.

So all the time I spend playing games has helped me to answer my big why…. and what I have come to believe is life is like a big game of chance. How well we do has nothing to do with what we think, how good we are…Life…if we are lucky and are blessed can go very well or in a blink of an eye for no reason other then shit happens…life could go terrible and whether it is going well or terrible we have to live it with what skills, strengths, luck we have and maybe the most important thing that we need is the ability to adapt …or know when to hold them, know when to fold em…

“I found out that if you are going to win games,

you had better be ready to adapt.”

William Feather