Sometimes we learn a good lesson from a silly pastime.

My silly pastime is a phone app, Solibon Solitaire.  To make it sillier, I only play Klondike Deal 1.  That’s one-card draw Solitaire, folks.  Not too challenging, right?  Well, it took me a while to figure out that if you keep trying, you cannot lose one-card draw Solitaire. That is especially true in this version which allows you to start a game over or undo a move limitless times.  Recently my winning street was 2,593.

Then I hit a wall.

I had started the game over several times, probably ten or more.  It seemed that one particular problem was insurmountable. In order to find other plays, it was necessary to cover up the Four of Hearts.  Once it was covered, I could find no way to uncover it and the game would grind to a halt.

The game started offering to let me skip this round for 99 cents.  It was at that point, I started to doubt my previous assumption that you cannot lose one-card draw Solitaire if you don’t give up.  I began to feel victimized, convinced that it had all been a trick of the designer to let me rack up a long winning streak, one I could not bear to lose, and then begin to drain me dry!  I felt anxiety about ending in defeat and thought of ways I could minimize my frustration.  Rather than pay or lose the game, I would simply delete it from my phone and never think about it again.  Obviously, however, if you have more played 2,593 games of Solitaire, it is your go-to timewaster, mind-releaser, SILLY PASTIME!  So I really didn’t want to do that.

Finally, I came to my senses.  It would be okay.  I’d try one more time to win and if I lost, I’d start over on a new streak.  It is, after all, just a game, right?  So, I played one last time.  I won!  Solebon will let you start over, but it deducts points from your score for doing so.  In the end, mine was -1483 and it took me one hour, twenty-four minutes, and 11 seconds, but the streak remained intact.  I would live to waste time another day!

It wasn’t a plot.  It wasn’t an up turning of everything I believed.  It was me, needing to do it differently and to keep working on it until I found the way.

If you are struggling with something in your life that is weightier than a computer game and hitting your head against a wall time after time, remember these three take-away lessons:

1. Don’t take it so seriously.
2. Be willing to lose.
3. Don’t give up until you’ve tried everything, including surrender.

“Ask and keep on asking and it will be given to you; seek and keep on seeking and you will find; knock and keep on knocking and the door will be opened to you.” – Matthew 7:7 (AMP)

• Change
• Successful Living
• Victim-Mentality