The Game of Life

Wouldn’t it be funny if after you finished your time on earth and you transitioned into the world beyond, you discovered that most of time that you spent on earth was supposed to fun and enjoyable? 

"Life is like a game of Monopoly."

Instead of enjoying and appreciating the resources, relationships and opportunities that always and serendipitously show up out of nowhere, you spent most of your life worrying about stuff that never happened. And, even if events did happen, it was not as traumatic as you thought it was going to be.

And did you notice, that after all those years working very hard and spending an extraordinary amount of time thinking about, working for, chasing after stuff like money, cars, clothes, approval from others, a slave to appearances, not looking bad, that it was all temporary and did not really add value to your life after all?

Isn’t it interesting, when looking back on your old life, you realize now that when challenges did present themselves, you somehow managed to handle whatever showed up for you?

If you could go back in time and relive your life at school, knowing what you know now, how much fun would you have? How much time would you spend caring about what the other kids thought about you? My guess is that you would spend zero time worrying and 100% of the time enjoying yourself, knowing that it was temporary and there was nothing to have worried about in the first place.

Life is like a game of Monopoly. 

"It is temporary."

You would most likely play the game with people you care for, people with whom you would share, people you would help. After all, who is more important in your world than your closest relationships?

But, once the board is set up, and the game begins, these same people who you care so deeply about suddenly become your competitors. Then you start to figure out strategies to manipulate them out of their properties so that you can achieve your goal of wiping them off the board. Isn’t Monopoly a wonderful game? I speak from experience.

This metaphor came to me as a painful epiphany when to my horror, I realized that I was turning into a competitive maniac against my own beloved child, the only other player in the game. I caught myself manipulatively negotiating with her in order to possess the Park Place property card to accompany my Boardwalk card. I even threw in a guilt trip! What was I thinking?!

And then it hit me. Life is like a game of Monopoly.

We are all immortal souls who truly love each other and would do anything to help each other evolve in our love for each other.

But, once we incarnate into this world, and start playing the game of life, we forget who we are and who the other players really are.

If you think about it, many of us think and act the same way in the game of Monopoly as we do in our lives.

For example, we:

• Do whatever we can to get money from the other players.
• Do whatever we can to avoid giving money to the other players.
• Try to stay out of jail if we have a chance to make more money.
• Want to escape to jail if we have no money (to pay to the other players if we land on their properties).
• Are all consumed with receiving (in the guise of building on our properties) rather than sharing with the other players. 
• Pray to God to get more money via landing on Free Parking (Lottery, anyone?)

In my experience, there have been more occasions than I care to remember where my competitive nature, levels of stress, aka my dark side, would emerge. I have seen people cheat, lie, manipulate, fight, yell, argue and generally get stressed out while playing the game - with their closest friends and family!

And, then, like every other game, eventually it ends. The game is put away and everyone resumes their love and devotion to each other.

The gift of learning Kabbalah is to constantly remind and support us to remember who we really are when we play the game of life. The next time you find yourself reacting to the material nature of life, just remember it is a game. It is temporary.

Have fun!