Life and The Game of Chess
I’m not a chess player but while trying to learn about it, I realized that there are many things we can learn from it about our own life and the world around us. It is a game but it describes the whole world and humanity in a way I think no other game can. You can be the king of your life or the queen of your fantasies.
Our world is quite like these 64 black and white squares, where we all constitute the different players having different powers or capabilities, with restricted moves to manage and create a balance in this world. And if the move we make is possibly the correct one, then everything will align and we could be the champions.
So, here I’ve tried to list down all the similarities and differences between the two :
- White Moves first : Sounds kinda Racist, isn’t it?
- Sacrifice : You need to sacrifice a few things to achieve what you aim for (your dreams) OR you might need to sacrifice some low order people to achieve greatness.
You should learn 3 things from this.
i) First : Be prepared to sacrifice, even the most loved things/ones in your life, just like a Queen in a game. She being the Queen to the esteemed has to be sacrificed sometimes, to save the King.
ii) Second : Don’t be sad about the sacrifice, it will only hinder your growth and cloud your judgements. I wouldn’t be sad if the sacrifice of the queen won me the game.
iii) Third : Always be sure that your sacrifice is for the greater good because you can’t take back a move. Always calculate all the moves of your opponent and be ready to sacrifice only when you are sure that your sacrifice is not in vain.
3. Pawn Promotion : Don’t underestimate anyone, even the smallest people can one day become the greatest.
4. Planning for future : It involves a mixture of long-term planning and short-term calculations about how to achieve your goals.
5. Time Management : If you don’t move, you lose by default. Being stuck at a point for long, is just being lazy. Nothing good would come out it, so you need to keep working on one upping yourself.
6. Army : To protect others because the people with power never fight on the front-lines.
7. King : The ruler is weaker than he should be.
8. Queen : Women, despite being far more powerful than men, are encouraged to be selfless and keep the man’s well-being at the back of their mind at all times.
9. Pawns : They are a very important aspect of the chess game, even with having a same number of pawns as Me you could be winning or losing depending upon your pawn structure. How does this can be used in real life… Think of your pawn as your friends/family/co-workers and my pawns as my friends/family/co-workers. If the lowest people in your team aren’t taken care of well, your group will not last long.
10. Pattern and randomness : All the information you need is in front of you. You just need to recognize the patterns and act upon it. Also, even a small change in a single move can switch the direction of the game completely, but still it is never random.
11. Total is More Than Sum of Parts : If you have a Single disconnected pawns on different sides of board, they are much weaker than 2 connected pawns. You know you can act alone and advance, but team-work can help you achieve more.
12. Infinite Possibilities : The Chess board might just have 64 squares, but it has an unlimited number of possible positions for you to move and perform an action. It not only has unlimited possibilities, but it’s also impossible to predict the final outcome when the game starts.
Life is also full of unimaginable possibilities and totally unpredictable too. You never know what life will serve you, based on your move, because you are unaware of the opponent’s game plan.
There are so many similarities and dissimilarities it is difficult to list all of them but also at same time, to agree and disagree with them.
Are these analogies apt? Comment down below with your own analogies and anecdotes of life!
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