PUTTING LIFE IN CHECK.
chess is one of those games that i have always desired to be better at but never am. i love anything strategy and feel as a whole chess provokes much more thought (and anxiety) than checkers or a video game.
i believe i enjoy the board game for many reasons. the history alone dates back hundreds of years and still it is a prevalent game in some circles currently. i am partial to the fact that it has an almost ‘outcast’ stigma attached. as in if you were in the chess club as opposed to the football team you were considered on the lower echelon of the socially excepted. yet most chess players usually hire the football players years down the road, funny how life works out as so.
however, i think my favorite reason for appreciating the game is that in chess one of the keys to victory (or check mate) is to always think 2-3 moves ahead. at least that’s the goal. you begin to place your pieces in strategic settings and hope that you will find an opening or an advantage in the game. it doesn’t always work out the way that you would hope, usually your opponent catches on, perhaps you make a mistake and it doesn’t go according to your original design, or you miscalculate and have to begin all over again and re-strategize during the game.
but i feel life could benefit from the same thinking; i am not underestimating the fact that people attempt to plan out their lives, i think a lot of us think 2-3 steps ahead (or at least we should). the problem perhaps is not in the failure to plan but in the fact we become discombobulated if we make a mistake and it doesn’t go according to our original thought or we miscalculate and have to begin all over again and re-strategize.
life is not over when we don’t accomplish our original goal. it is time to think again, to create new hopes for the future. to think 2-3 moves ahead but in another area of our lives, explore what life is trying to teach us or reshape our vision for the future around what passions we are excited about currently.
it is an unpredictable world, and maybe that accounts for not only the excitement of these days but the turmoil as well. but don’t lose hope, begin to place the pieces to this game called life in strategic places, and when it doesn’t work out right away look for another opening.
-stephen
this post was inspired by my sister ruth.
i believe i enjoy the board game for many reasons. the history alone dates back hundreds of years and still it is a prevalent game in some circles currently. i am partial to the fact that it has an almost ‘outcast’ stigma attached. as in if you were in the chess club as opposed to the football team you were considered on the lower echelon of the socially excepted. yet most chess players usually hire the football players years down the road, funny how life works out as so.
however, i think my favorite reason for appreciating the game is that in chess one of the keys to victory (or check mate) is to always think 2-3 moves ahead. at least that’s the goal. you begin to place your pieces in strategic settings and hope that you will find an opening or an advantage in the game. it doesn’t always work out the way that you would hope, usually your opponent catches on, perhaps you make a mistake and it doesn’t go according to your original design, or you miscalculate and have to begin all over again and re-strategize during the game.
but i feel life could benefit from the same thinking; i am not underestimating the fact that people attempt to plan out their lives, i think a lot of us think 2-3 steps ahead (or at least we should). the problem perhaps is not in the failure to plan but in the fact we become discombobulated if we make a mistake and it doesn’t go according to our original thought or we miscalculate and have to begin all over again and re-strategize.
life is not over when we don’t accomplish our original goal. it is time to think again, to create new hopes for the future. to think 2-3 moves ahead but in another area of our lives, explore what life is trying to teach us or reshape our vision for the future around what passions we are excited about currently.
it is an unpredictable world, and maybe that accounts for not only the excitement of these days but the turmoil as well. but don’t lose hope, begin to place the pieces to this game called life in strategic places, and when it doesn’t work out right away look for another opening.
-stephen
this post was inspired by my sister ruth.
Comments
i might pass this on to some others... I'm a photojournalist in Michigan, and most of our newspapers are taking a big hit. Jobs lost, papers shutting down, people being paid less.
Many of us (students) were hoping to get jobs after graduation, but many of us will have the rethink the pieces we are trying to play.
thanks for the advice
Today I had to make a huge decision, that I think will negatively affect people's lives, 10 children's lives mostly, and I am personally devastated over it. I will definitely continue thinking about this post as I consider how I can possibly try to move forward from here.
Not to mention it was great to finally hear some Anchor and Braille songs played live!
Also, Tolkien said, "Not all who wander are lost." I know that is true.
God bless,
Erin
Another great post :) Your blog always brightens up my afternoon.
I myself don't have much trouble with planning, but it's being able to make adjustments or start over from square one that I need to work on. Right now, I have a really rigid idea of what I'm going to do out of high school, in college, and afterwards, but I know that one flunked SAT or one irresponsible decision would scramble a lot of my plans. I've never been very flexible, and I think I need to experience a little more of life before I can develop any mastery of the reset button.
I think I've probably planned out the next ten steps of your life, but of course, the best thing to do is let God move you where you need to be. :)
(Whenever I play chess
it ends up in a stalemate though =\)
So I find my moves tend to get smashed. Reality has a way of seeing my plans and locking them down. The thing is though, so long as I hold myself together I'll never run out of pieces. I can always regroup and start setting things up again.
And if I'm playing a game on God's behalf, maybe...just maybe...if I have enough faith the moves will all fall into place.
Richard was a friend of my fathers. He was a brilliant architect and entrepreneur. He noticed me hanging around the chess table in his amazing "Frank Lloyd Wright" home. Half kidding he asked if I wanted to learn to play. I said yes.
Richard was a competitive genius and spared no moves on me, the nine year old little girl. He bested me time after time. He was an imposing character to most, but I was not the least bit put off by him. I kept coming back for more.
The thing that sticks out in my mind is that he was in a hurry to win...that was his only goal. I on the other hand wanted to learn..and spend time around this amazing man. I wanted to enjoy the sparing...the quiet mental jousting. He wanted a quick kill! His game plan needed to change as I caught on, he needed to readjust. He did not like that, but if he wanted to stay ahead he was forced to.
One day I asked him if we could just play...I remember saying "let's dance old man" No one ever stood up to this guy, but I recall a crooked grin spreading across his face. So he let me run him around the board a little longer than usual. I learned more that day than any other time. It was the time spent and the mistakes made that counted, not who won. Richard taught me so much more than chess. It took me until High School to ever win!
So, getting the promotion or the house or whatever may be the ultimate goal: but the planning and the earning of the "Check Mate" is most of the time spent in life anyway. Find a way to enjoy the discovery as much as the prize! Winning to me is living a peaceful, productive, loving life, a life full of meaning. Not who takes the prize...
and oh yes..I was on the chess team...NERD ALERT
-leah
thank you stephen, for your words.
Thank you Stephen.
My girlfriend just got some bad news in school and I think this really puts life in check, as you said.
It's funny how I decided to "randomly" check out your blog cause I remembered that you have one...
He works in very mysterious and wonderful ways.
Have a good day. =]
I've never come close to winning a chess game.
But I have yet to honestly fail.
Maybe it'd give me some perspective. But wishing for suffering seems so backwards. Thank you all for your thoughts.
I like having my life planned out. I always thought that was a fault of mine though. Ill ponder this blog for awhile...
Oh and I'm a chess nerd. Except there was no chess team/club at my school.
But about planning life a few steps ahead, i dont know if i agree with that. but then again, my life being a mess sometimes might have something to do with that. maybe if i did plan ahead, thought out what really needed to be done i'd enjoy things more and would have some order in my life.
definetely something to think about and actually try to accomplish (in my case).
I think sometimes I end up planning ahead a little to much and I loose grip on the present. Sometimes I just need to wake up and enjoy the present instead of always plotting out the future.
To keep the chess metaphor going, its like when your so focused on carrying out your perfect strategy that you get totally blindsided by a crippling attack from the other player.
Sometimes we just need to live for the moment.
"At this point in my life, I thought the verse meant that there was little value in planning, because we're just a vapor here, and tomorrow we're going to blow away. Then I read the rest of the section. 'Instead you ought to say, 'If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that.'"
"When you are planning, it is important to be continually committing the whole planning process to prayer, and asking, "Father in Heaven, is this plan Your will for us at this time?"
-Bobb Biehl
Just earlier today(while feeling a bit sad) I was thinking about how I need to find something that I'm passionate about, that I can make goals with so I can have something to work toward and look forward to. But I suppose that my problem has a lot to do with being a teenager and still figuring out who I am, and not fully understanding life.
Maybe I should start playing chess. I've never played before.
BUT you're right! Life is not perfect - so many of our plans in life will fall through, but that happens to SO many people who have turned out triumphant. Henry Ford, for example, failed before he became a success... Mr. Hershey, Abraham Lincoln, etc etc etc It takes learning from a little bit of failure to mold greatness.
Recently, I've been working on a HUGE project. I've definately been thinking 4-5 steps ahead on this one - I worry at times that all of this work may end up as one of those "failed attempts"...but, if I get knocked down I will pick myself back up and keep trying.
Thanks for your post Stephen - and thanks for inspiring a good one, Ruth :-)
http://candicesconfidential.wordpress.com/
I felt lost. I thought that everything I had planned about my future had gone wrong. Then I realized that I just have to take a different route; go to a different college. They might be something better for me there.
The example seems kind of trivial, but it was a huge deal to me. I honestly believed that if I wanted it bad enough, I could get it. I thought since I knew I deserved it, I would get it. Yet it didn't happen. Of course, it did for a reason and only time will tell why.
time to go rearrange my room while re thinking my passions and plans.
I can't play chess worth squat.
Thanks for sharing this.
thanks for answering that question =)
-Caleb
Learning to play chess and mastering it takes people YEARS. But once you know how to do it and once you figure it out you can apply what you learned to various situations in real life, especially socially. I'm not saying that it makes you manipulative, but you can handle conversations and business and social interactions with people on a more skilled level because you've built logic in time doing something as small as playing chess. The same thing can be said about a lot of things once you master them in various situations, but logic and skill and tactfulness are all relevant to chess.
(I posted a comment before this that was the same general idea, I just didn't follow up to correct my terrible typos which is one of my peeves.)