1. 11:00am Sunday Aug. 17, 2014
Life is like a game. You pick your players, trusting that they’ll help you win. But the moment you get dealt
a “move back 10 spaces” card, you find out your teammates don’t go back with you to help you move
forward again. They continue on without you despite efforts you’ve previously made to put them ahead
because you wanted them to win. You could’ve tripped them when they weren’t looking and acted like it
wasn’t you who did it to put yourself in the lead, but winning really didn’t mean much to you. You now
realize your opponents are the same players as your teammates; you’re in this game alone. Good deeds,
sacrifices made, all the help you offer, and playing fair – by the rules – put you behind the rest of them.
Their obsession to be the first to cross the finish line caused them to lie, cheat, manipulate, and take
advantage of others. It becomes “Guess Who” when choosing whether ornot you can trust people; taking
the risk to actually trust someone knowing they could so fucking easily lie to you about every single detail
of their life. It’s a vicious cycle of ‘take me as I am’ or ‘break me while you can.’ The whole world is
against you darling, don’t believe the fake persona shown to you – treating you as if you’re the treasure in
the hands of a grateful beholder. The world will abandon you in the blink of an eye once you figured out
the enemy’s strategy. It’s every man for himself. Too much of people breaking the rules and not taking the
time to do things correctly has urged everyone to be guarded; like kindness being expressed towards
them is too good to be true; like being genuinely cared for is someone’s mind-trick to lure you in, get what
they want, then vanish; like real, authentic, honorable human beings are a foreign language forgotten
about decades ago. In this game, there are situations where you’ll have to play by rules otherthan your
own solely to avoid starting a war of who is the better player. No shots will ever be fired from you, but an
attack by the opposing competitor, unable to see beyond themselves, will take aim and fire at will.
Being strong will end up the only choice you have left if you plan on casting your flag of victory in the wind
for all to see. Although battered and warn, any pair of eyes drawn to it can see that you played for your
integrity instead of your title. So fly that flag high cadet, it’s now a permanent reminder symbolizing your
ultimate conquest against the monstrosity encrypted within the Game of Life.
Congratulations.