Most people think that the game of solitaire is a boring game that most people never win because its like gambling, you never know what the next card will be. But when I get unfocused and need to clear my mind and find a straight path, Solitaire is the best game for me, winning or not. Maybe it’s the alone time or the fact that all the moves depend on me and I have to pay attention. I guess I kind of equate that to my life.

When I play solitaire my complete and total focus becomes every move and I get a little frustrated when I miss something, like moving a red 5 onto a black 6 and I pull a red 5 down instead of moving the one I already have. Life is kind of like that too. Every move depends on you and what you decide to do in every situation. Each situation depends on the move you just made. When you miss something that happened that you should have seen it gets a little frustrating and you kick yourself in the you know what for not picking it up. I don’t quit if I miss something like that, however sometimes it screws up the whole game. Just like missing something in your life can screw up a whole bunch of stuff too, but you can click on the undo in life like you can in computer solitaire.

In computer solitaire you can set it to see three cards instead of just one. I guess you can do that in life too if you know how to plan. You can look at the situation in front of you and plan ahead or see your choices. I get confused too much when I play solitaire that way because I get overwhelmed with my choices and when I play solitaire I like to focus on one thing, winning the game. I suppose some people would like to see their choices and think that was easier; having the future lined up and taking each perfect step to get there. Then again, life isn’t like that. You take your moves and add them up, step on stone then the next and you expect to get somewhere, but when you flip over the next card you get thrown a curve ball. You have to learn to be able to dodge those and keep moving, just move onto the next card or set of cards and find a new choice.

I don’t know if you run the game where it keeps track of your points or not but each time you flop through the whole deck and flip it over to start over you loose 100 points. I am glad life isn’t like that. Sometimes when you get to the end of something and you flop it and try starting over at the beginning you do loose stuff, but it’s not really points. I think if we lost points in life people may not just flop it and start over, they may try harder to focus the first time.

Life is a lot harder to focus on then solitaire because you have so many different levels going on. I guess if you wanted to compare life to real game of solitaire it would have to be spider solitaire. Not just the one color kind but the two color kind where you have a million different moves you can make and each one effects the next. You have to get them all lined up so it will fall in the right place. Life is like that too, you try to juggle everything so that you can line it up and get everything in the right place.

Now you know why I play solitaire. It’s not just to play a game of cards and try to win, its to learn to focus on everything that is happening and try to line all of it up so that it will all fall together and I will win the game. I just wish that life was easy to win but I am glad it is as fun to play.