Chess move by move

In Parallels between Chess and Life I referred to this parallel as count to 32 before you spend your money or before you touch the piece you want to move. The 32 is nothing special. That is the number of pieces on the Chess board at the beginning of the game. Counting to 32 should also take some time. If you rush to counting to 32, what’s the rush? You better have a good reason! If you ju”Life energy” is a term or concept that is introduced in (Chapter 2 of) Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin. Simply put, when we spend time for something (money, for example) we give up time to do it. The effort and time spent is life energy. So if you are spending spending time - past, present and future - unwisely, you are wasting your life away.st count and make it to 32 - you will probably carry out the decision you made before you started counting. It is a waste of time whether the decision was good or bad. The idea is to THINK before you do whatever you want to do. Should you spend now? Can it wait? Why are you buying it? Are there better alternatives? Could I put this money to better use? (In chess language: what good is this move to my position? Is there a better move? What is my opponent trying to do?)

Hopefully, your answers to the questions above are not yes or no. That will not do you much good. You have to continue and give yourself a good reason for doing or not doing whatever you wanted to do. Otherwise your commitment to the decision will be short-term. For example, if I want to spend money on a book, but before I do it, I ask myself: Do I need to do this? Can I put this money to a better use? I may answer yes to the first question and the second question… and follow up with ‘what better use’? Pay my rent. Building up a savings account for times of emergency. Then I wont regret buying the book. Ever! Or I may find that the book is necessary for a class that I am taking… I cannot share a book with anybody. Yes, it is necessary to get this book. In that case, I will never regret buying the book.

One last tip - do the thinking before you go to the store!