The Things I've Learned from Solitaire

I'm a gamer. I'm a gamer in the sense that I like playing solitaire...in any form, really. I can play mindlessly for a half an hour or so, letting my mind slip into neutral and stop it's forever spin. Here's what I've learned from solitaire. Sometimes I lose. Actually, most times I lose. Sometimes it's obvious from the start that I've headed down the wrong path and sometimes I get frustratingly close to the end of the game before the notice 'there are no more moves' pops up and dashes all my hopes. On occasion - when I'm close to success - I press the undo button until I can get back to a place where I'd made a critical decision and change the play. Often when I do this I get the oh-so-satisfying 'you're awesome' sign bounce across my screen. I've won, and all I had to do was go back and rewrite history. This, my friends is not real life. We can't hit the undo button and go back to a moment in time just so that we can have some success whatever that looks like in the moment. We are stuck with each decision, each step we take cannot be undone. We have no undo button - we cannot retrace our steps. But our option is a good one nonetheless. We can 'start over'. We can wipe the slate clean and become more attentive to each step as we take it. We can become more mindful of each decision, more deliberate in our moves. And when we get the bouncing 'you're awesome' scroll across the screen that is our life we will take it for what it's worth and begin a new game, with a new goal, and continue being ever mindful of every step we take. There is no undo in life - only start again.