Chess move by move

I remember playing Chess with Kajani K. years ago and there were times when I got tired of waiting for him to play his move. It was not because he was “slow” because when a Chess clock was introduced, he would play at lightning speed! It was almost never possible to beat Kajani when playing a game that was timed (with a chess clock). One time, out of boredom, I decided to study his face! I looked at his nose, hair, … and finally eyes. There! All over the place. Then they would stop for a while… and I would stop looking at him to “see” what he was looking at. The eyes would start looking all over the board again… It took me a long time to realize that Kajani was not just wasting time. He was searching, hunting, quizzing moves out. I can say that of all amateurs that I have played with, he was the most professional. The person who tried to find the soul of Chess - the best move or moves at any one time. I later adopted this approach. I think I am a fairly quick player, but I try to look at everything before I make my move - most of the time!

What does this have to do with life - more specifically, money? I realized later on, that not knowing where every bit of my money went was like not knowing where my pieces were when playing Chess. What’s the point of playing the game in the first place? How can you win if you don’t know where every piece on the board is, and if it is not on the board, what happened to it?! Similarly, I told myself to track every cent I earned or spent. For me, money is Chess. Tracking everything helped me see patterns in my expenditure. Oh, I just gave up my queen for nothing! (That’s how I think when I make an unnecessary expenditure - of course, sometimes it’s a pawn, and I don’t sweat it too much - until I miss the pawn…)

My two pawns. How do you think when you play chess or spend money? (What a loaded question!)