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Issue 10.2 - Rules of the Game
In our house, games are a common Christmas gift. And this Christmas was no exception. My sister Paula and her family sent us a game called Kazink. The game includes a board, cards and chips and plays a bit like three dimensional tic-tac-toe - each player is required to get stacks of their chips in contiguous rows in order to win.
The first time I played the game was with my seven-year-old daughter Kelsey. I scanned the rules quickly to understand them, and we began to play. Most plays are very straightforward - the card in your hand relates to a space on the board where you can place a chip. There are several special cards, and after a quick read, I understood how they were used - or at least I thought I did.
Kelsey and I enjoyed the game, and I chose to take it on a quick trip to Michigan so others could play it too.
When playing the game with Paula and my dad, I reread the rules for them. Upon this closer reading I noticed a couple of nuances regarding the use of the special cards that I hadn't noticed when playing with Kelsey. These nuances made the game more interesting and changed the strategy significantly.
A couple of days later when playing the game yet again, questions about the use of certain cards came up, and further clarification was made. Again these changes made Kazink a more fun and interesting game. While I enjoyed the game with my limited understanding of the rules, it improved dramatically with the options the rules clarifications provided.
New Year's Eve
On New Year's Eve six of us gathered to play a card game called Tripoley. While everyone at the table had played before, it had been a long time so we reviewed the rules before getting started. Sandy, the player with the most game experience recalled that a couple of the rules were different from her recollection.
Upon reviewing the rules again, we found that her memories were suggested variations to the basic game. We decided to play the game as we had originally planned for awhile, then changed to play the new variation. The game was fun in both versions. But by having two versions to play, we were able to modify our strategy and give us a change of pace. The change reinvigorated the game and made it more fun.
Life in Middle School
Parker is an eighth grader. In this year preceding high school, school is changing, with more subjects, different teachers, and more complexity. While I believe that getting good grades is an indicator of academic success achievement, I also realize that getting good grades is a game. My advice to Parker, has been and will continue to be, to learn the material and rules of the game. I assure him that he will have more success and more fun when he does both.
As he learns more about how the game of school is really played, he is able to be more successful.
The Rules of our Lives
Life may not be a game, but it does have rules. And much like my experience with Kazink and Tripoley, or Parker's experience at school; when we better understand the rules of the game, we have a better chance to be successful.
Our lives don't come with a rulebook that we can review any time. But by observing others, reviewing our own experiences, and consulting those we admire, where we would like to succeed, we can better understand the rules of the game of life.
It is our job to learn the rules, examine them carefully and use the rules to our greatest advantage - allowing us to serve both ourselves and others more fully.
Different than most games though, we must be willing to challenge the rules of the game, much like Sandy did New Year's Eve.
Questioning the Rules
Laws are rules that we are better off to following. But there are many other rules in our lives that we follow because we assume them to be rules. Because Kazink seemed to follow patterns of other games I knew, I didn’t initially read the rules as carefully as I should have. If I had never played the game with anyone but Kelsey, I’d still be playing under those limiting rules.
And that happens to us in life all the time.
It is our responsibility to question the rules to see if they are real - and if they are working. Most great accomplishments and advances in human history have come from people questioning the written or unwritten rules. It is our privilege and responsibility to continue to do the same. Remember though that we cannot question the rules until we understand them. So, it is our task as a human to learn, understand, then question the rules.
The rules we play by will determine the results we achieve.
It's time to think about the rules and how they relate to your results
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