The Game Was Lost…
We were all sitting on the floor this morning in the den at home. Sitting on the area rug with my legs crossed, I noticed that I really need to vacuum as I looked at the game board.
I still love to sit on the floor, but now I’m at the age where I have to shift around pretty often or my legs will fall asleep.
As opposed to my 3 year old, who can just sit with her feet all tucked up under her for an hour and then pop right up and sprint away.
But back to the game…
Over the past weekend, we had played through several levels of Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle (which is a wonderful game if you are looking for a good one).
This morning we tried to make it through game 6 (each game corresponds to a book…cool, right?!).
This time, the bad guys won. Actually, we ran out of time before they actually won, but we were in the process of losing, no doubt.
For you Potter fans out there, Fenrir Greyback really took a toll on us.
But this time we played, I actually took notice of the moment in the game when the course changed from uncertain to the path of losing.
Like when you are playing Monopoly and your brother puts hotels on the orange properties…at that point you have lost, it’s just a matter of time before all your money is collected by him.
We lost the game when we defeated one evil character, who was then replaced with a worse character…
We went from holding our own, making slow but sure progress, to then losing it all.
All because we made the short term play.
The long term path killed us. (ok, not us actually…but all our characters in the game)
It seems that is the story of life.
Short term thinking always ends up costing more than we bargain for in the long run.
I think of the joke I read somewhere, “If I had known I would live this long, I would have taken better care of myself!”
Everywhere, the short term screams out to us.
In relationships, business, sales, growth, it’s all around us.
“Cut this corner this time, save a day on this project.”
“Skip the piano practice today, you can make it up tomorrow.”
“Stay late at work this week, you can catch up with kids for next week movie night.”
Sadly, most of the time we don’t notice the actual moment when the path shifts and we are headed towards defeat. We arrive there and blame it on the last step we took, willfully ignorant of the first step that put us on the path to begin with.
We probably won’t have time to give the game another shot today, but the next time we do, I’ll be watching for that moment, the small hidden choice that will be the moment where we get on the path towards a win or towards a loss.
It takes long term perspective to be able to see the results of a decision today.
Don’t let the short term destroy your 2025.
