Your Career, Your Family, Your Retirement.  Do these words make you wake up at night?

All-along I was thinking that I am too childish and immature to participate in those games. Now, reading Buddhist literature, I am discovering a convenient alternative view on this matter.

The whole life is a game with a sad ending. And you play all those games throughout: education, family, career, saving and growing old. Well, you have to do it, don’t you? But if you put too much effort in any of those games, you behave like a child, who believes that game is a reality, and he gets upset, if others do not play fair.

On the other hand, there are those easy-goers, who frolic in the sun.  They change places, and occupation, they shift religions and opinions, their tastes are also changing in food, music and even sex preferences.  They do not think too much about impending end, and they die ready for the one final change.

So, kids!  Do not believe everything they tell you.  Play different games with different people.  Experiment.  Do not attach any significance to these games of Monopoly and Chance! and Sorry. Keep a childish game-free mind.

What an interesting contradiction.  The more serious you are about your life, the more child-like is your behavior.  And the less you concern with past and future aspects of your life, the more you are prepared for a final whistle (when parents call you home for supper), the more you understand that this is all just a game, and the more you are playing like an adult – ready to quit, when the fun ends.