Let’s Focus on our Own Game

We can listen more than we can share advice. We can build trust in our friends and families by showing that we trust them first. And we can show we care about them no matter what moves they end up taking. In doing that, they are much more likely to look to us for listening ears and gentle nudges and simple suggestions. And we can, in turn, remind ourselves that most of those brilliant moves we might see for our friends generally aren’t quite as brilliant in reality because those moves aren’t ours to make.

A couple of weeks ago I played Chinese Checkers some a few dear friends. It must have been decades since I last played that game, so, if you, like me, haven’t played for a while, let me walk you through the very simple rules and objective.

Each player picks a certain color of marble and they each setup their base in a triangle formation right in front of where they’re sitting kind of like an upside down bowling pin setup. Each player then takes turns moving one piece at a time with the target of getting all of their marbles across the board to the opposite triangle bowling bin base. It seems very simple but you can imagine how complex things can get in the middle of the board if you have four or so players all charging ahead from different directions. And one additional rule that can be built out very strategically, is that if you butt up against an opponent’s marble and if there is a fear circle on the other side of the opponents marble you can jump over your opponents marble and so long as that condition continues to exist, you can jump over multiple times. This can move your marbles toward their target home base really quickly if you have the right setup.

By the end of the game I was completely comfortable with the game play but the first few turns, I took my time and weighed my options carefully. Meanwhile, my three friends I was playing with would rather unhelpfully expound sighs and oohs periodically followed usually by “Oh my goodness! I see a really great move for you! I hope you see it!” I tried my best to take those comments as just good hearted and spontaneous outbursts spurring from the intensity and excitement of the game. But a curious thing happened almost every time I finished my turn.

My friends would compliment me on my move and would say to some effect that there wasn’t a better move and they would start trying to show me how their move would have been even better than the one I had just made. Except almost without fail, when they actually tried playing out the move, it ended up not being legal or not being nearly as good as their oohs and ahhs would imply.

It made me laugh while playing the game, but since then I’ve reflected on how easy it is to assume that we know what is best for our friends’ and family’s lives. How often does the thought pop into our heads that our sister would be so much better off if they would only get out of that relationship that we don’t think is helping her or that our best friend would feel more excitement for life and break free of their current depression if they only left the house more. If we look back on the past few weeks-worth of conversations, I bet we’d all discover those thoughts creeping into our minds. We say to ourselves, “Ooh! I see a perfect move for you! I hope you see it!” And sometimes we even share our game plans for our friends and families and sometimes we even feel hurt if they decide not to take us up on our chosen game plan for their lives.

But this is the thing: we will never have the kind of scrutiny on anyone else’s life than they already have on their own. Our perspective, though well-meant and possibly based on meaningful past life experiences are just that—our life experiences being played out in our own lives through our own eyes. And every other human among the 7+ billion of us all have our own game plan and our eyes are firmly placed on the next few moves to help us advance to our home base.

So does that mean we should just leave people completely alone to fend for themselves in the world? No! But it does mean that we need to take a different tactic in the way we offer that help. We can listen more than we can share advice. We can build trust in our friends and families by showing that we trust them first. And we can show we care about them no matter what moves they end up taking. In doing that, they are much more likely to look to us for listening ears and gentle nudges and simple suggestions. And we can, in turn, remind ourselves that most of those brilliant moves we might see for our friends generally aren’t quite as brilliant in reality because those moves aren’t ours to make.