Chess move by move

Studying books, practicing sleep, consulting with a coaches and friends,… on how best to start off your day. Which side of the bed is it best to wake up on? How fast should you get out of bed? Is it better to read in bed first, or brush you teeth, wash you face, and then pray? May be watch tv? May be shower and leave the house as soon as possible? What to wear? Okay, you have found that out. Next:

You have left the bed, may be the house. Who should you talk to? How wide should you smile? How much should you complain? How much should you listen? How fast should you work? How nice should you be on the phone? What should you to do to get a better review? Should you hang on to this job? Should you eat out? What time should you go to bed? Should you see the Doctor? Okay, this has been resolved one way or the other? Next:

What will your legacy be? Should you have married those four? Are you happy? What are you good at? What proof is there that….? What are the fundamentals of life? What do you need to live an enjoyable life? Was it all worth it? Did you waste time? Do you need to analyze the past? Do you need to keep a record of my life? Should you just move on? What are the lessons learnt? If you were to choose, would you choose your life all over again? What would you change?

I cannot say that I have listed all the questions that people ask or the points at which a decision has to be made, for whatever reason. But it is not a bad list of ideas/questions at all - in my opinion. I think a lot of people ask at least 10 percent of these questions at some point in their life.

I wonder if there is a game in which one thinks about each move/decision in so much detail as is the case with Chess. I will not list the questions that will match the life questions above. But I can tell you this: the questions that are asked during a Chess game or before a game even starts, or after the game, or during one’s career are awfully similar to the life questions.

In a way, everybody plays a game of Chess without knowing it. If you live to be 70, and assuming that you started asking any of the questions above when you were 10 years old, then you will have asked any of those questions about 21,900 times (60 years times 365 days per year)! I look at life as a game of Chess. Each day, you play a game. You decide how what Opening you use, what the Middle game will be, and what the Ending will be. 21,900! That is a lot of games. How many of those do you think you won? How many of them did you enjoy? How many are memorable? How many you would rather forget? How many have you already played? How do you want them to go? What can you do to change the result?