Deconstructing the "Game of Life"

The Game of Life is a treacherous game to play. It's not like Candyland, where everyone reaches the end all happy and colorful within a half hour, and gets to claim bragging rights for reaching King Kandy. Life is a backstabbing mistress that will do with you as she pleases, and there is nothing you can do other than make the best of the cards she gives you, and hope you don't spontaneously perish or become broke in the process.

In all seriousness, Milton Bradley's Game of Life is a game based largely on chance. Players who make bank at the beginning of the game can lose their fortune in an instant, and others who began dirt poor can make a comeback as the wealthiest on the board. Though participants must all go through some of the same life events (such as getting married, having children, etc., though this differs in the various editions that have been released), you can choose whether or not to go to college, to invest in property, to buy a house, taking on additional schooling, and many other choices  that a majority of the population experiences or will experience later in life. Though not all individuals will really choose to get married or to buys  house, the game itself as a product must have some standard equilibrium for its players to be judged upon.

Just as one cannot control how the dice will roll during a board game, many things happen in life that are unexplainable and due purely to chance, despite the good or bad decisions we may have previously made. Just last week, upon coming home from school to my apartment, I discovered a massive leak in our fridge that had flooded the kitchen; it was no fault of mine, yet it happened.  Why? Perhaps the fridge was having a bad day and just needed to let loose some tears of sorrow. Whatever the cause, I sopped up the water and put in a request to plumbing maintenance to schedule a therapy session with the emotional appliance.

It is interesting to see the definition of success the various versions of Life in contrast to how everyday people define success. For some, gaining wealth and accumulating assets is the greatest and highest form of achievement one can earn, as is the criteria for winning the board game of Life. This was Josh's goal throughout the entire game, as he sought to increase our team's income and assets by all possible means,  However, many people during our game, including Heather and Devaki, viewed being successful in life as not the amount of money you have, but the amount of happiness you experience on your life journey. For Heather, this was having one or two children and living in a moderately nice home; to her, income and assets didn't matter.

Though one can make good choices in life that do have direct and foreseeable payoff, such as going to college or investing in a portfolio at an early age, there will unavoidably be occurrences along the way that no one expects but must be dealt with. Such is life- an unpredictable, volatile experience, but with the potential to find happiness along the way.