My dad taught me how to play the game monopoly. Now, my dad is a
wonderful person. He raised four children and always prioritized spending time
with each of us. And while he is a
quiet and reserved man, he is the most ruthless Monopoly player I have ever
known in my life. He understood that the
name of the game is to acquire.
When we would play when I was a little kid and I got my money from the
bank, I would always want to save it, hang on to it, because it was just so
much fun to have money. He spent on everything he landed on. And then, when he
bought it, he would mortgage it as much as he could and buy everything else he
landed on. He would accumulate everything he could. And eventually, he became
the master of the board.
And every time I landed on his square, I would have to pay him money. Eventually,
every time he would take my last dollar, I would quit in utter defeat. And then
he would always say the same thing to me. He would look at me and he’d say,
“One day, you’ll learn to play the game.” I hated it when he said that to me.
But one summer, I played Monopoly with a neighbor kid–a friend of mine–almost
every day, all day long. We’d play Monopoly for hours.
And that summer, I learned to play the game. I came to understand the
only way to win is to make a total commitment to acquisition. I came to
understand that money and possessions, that’s the way that you keep score. And
by the end of that summer, I was more ruthless than my dad. I was ready to bend
the rules, if I had to, to win that game. And I sat down with him to play that
fall.
Slowly, cunningly, I exposed my dad’s vulnerability. Relentlessly,
inexorably, I drove him off the board. The game does strange things to you. I
can still remember. We were sitting on the carpet of our living room near the
fireplace. I looked at my dad. He taught me how to play the game. I took
everything he had. I destroyed him financially and psychologically. I watched
him give his last dollar and quit in utter defeat. It was the greatest moment
of my life.
And then he had one more thing to teach me. Then he said, “Now it all
goes back in the box–all those houses and hotels, all the railroads and utility
companies, all that property and all that wonderful money–now it all goes back
in the box.” I didn’t want it to go back in the box. I wanted to leave the
board out, bronze it maybe, as a memorial to my ability to play the game.
“No,” he said, “None of it was really yours. You got all heated up
about it for a while, but it was around a long time before you sat down at the
board, and it will be here after you’re gone. Players come and players go. But
it all goes back in the box.”
The game always ends. For every player, the game ends. Every day you
pick up a newspaper, and you can turn to a page that describes people for whom
this week the game ended. Skilled businessmen, an aging grandmother who was in
a retirement home with a brain tumor, teenage kids who think they have the
whole world in front of them, and somebody drives through a stop sign. It all
goes back in the box–houses and cars, titles and clothes, filled garages, bank
accounts, even your body.
When I first started martial arts I
remember the desire to become an expert at MMA or jiu jisu immediately. This would lead to some evenings where I left
class frustrated I hadn't "done well enough" in my own mind. I found
myself getting consumed in this fabricated competitiveness rather than enjoying
my time training and appreciating the people around me. This year I wrapped up my MMA career and
decided to pursue only BJJ. I’m left
with memories, experiences, and friends that made the journey worth it. As the MMA phase of my life ends, a new and
exciting part begins to take its place. I'll be a mom, law school grad, BJJ competitor, coach, and personal trainer.
I guess at the end of the day as
with anything those proverbial pieces "go back in the box" and all
that is left is a memory.
Look around you. Look at all the pieces you're accumulating and take them away for a minute to see what will remain. All you are left with is how you've lived: how you've played the game and the people you've been playing it with.
Are you happy with it?
