I play mahjong on the computer.
It just occurred to me that the program I prefer has a feature that I love. It ends the game and tells me when it is hopeless to go on. Oh, if only life offered such surety! To know when to give up, what a boon that would be. I don’t give up. I will probably never give up. I know how to cut my losses, which is a completely different kettle of fish than giving up.
I remember when I chose my kids over my career. It was a choice forced upon me by circumstances beyond my control. A person can put themselves at risk to accomplish a goal, but it is quite another thing to put innocent children at risk for the same. I had stayed the course until the last few disastrous months, where others had fallen by the wayside. Then a cluster of events piled on me like a head on collision with a freight train, and my children were at risk. The choice was clear to me, I chose my kids. Not that the children knew or cared, they didn’t, they still don’t. Would I make the same choice again, sure I would. Would I like it, hell no.
When the disastrous circumstances were crashing through my door, I was told by a few people to “not give up”, referring to my career. What on earth were they thinking! (That is not a real question, their mindset is not one I want to spend any time trying to understand. I didn’t respect them then, and I don’t respect them now.) There was nothing on earth that was worth sacrificing my children for, nothing.
But wouldn’t it have been wonderful if I had known before investing 14 years of hard work and sacrifice, that it would come down to a simple, sudden choice. Also, success and failure are not black and white or binary, they are prone to grey scale and to parallax.
My children survived, and now thrive.
Sometimes I think a kind and reliable “you can give up now fairy” would have come in handy. Ah, but would I have listened? Very likely not.
I really enjoy this mahjong game.
Worldly Distractions
Weather
2°C
Date: 3:00 PM EDT Saturday 7 April 2018
Condition: Partly Cloudy
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Tendency: Falling
Temperature: 2.0°C
Dew point: -10.7°C
Humidity: 39%
Wind: SW 25 gust 38 km/h
Visibility: 24 km
Quote
“For you to be successful, sacrifices must be made. It’s better that they are made by others but failing that, you’ll have to make them yourself.”
Rita Mae Brown
Movie, Ghost
