Life Is Like Monopoly
You win by acquiring, but in the end, it all goes back in the box
John Ortberg is a pastor and clinical psychologist. When he was young, his grandma taught him how to play Monopoly:
She understood that the name of the game is to acquire. She would accumulate everything she could, and, eventually, she became the master of the board. And eventually, every time, she would take my last dollar, and I would quit in utter defeat. And then she would always say the same thing to me. She would look at me, and she would say: “One day, you’ll learn to play the game.”
One summer, John played a lot of Monopoly with the neighbors’ kids, and he — indeed — learned to play the game.
I came to understand the only way to win is to make a total commitment to acquisition. I came to understand that money and possessions — that’s the way you keep score. And by the end of that summer, I was more ruthless than my grandmother.
I was ready to bend the rules if I had to, to win that game. And I sat down with her to play that fall. I took everything she had. I destroyed her financially and psychologically. I watched her give her last dollar and quit in utter defeat.
Of course, grandma being grandma, she had one more lesson up her sleeve:
