Strategy

May 8

I am thankful for strategy. Strategy allows us to develop a plan of action, provided a fixed set of circumstances, which will work to achieve a goal. Wikipedia defines strategy as "a high level plan to achieve one or more goals under conditions of uncertainty." Strategies differentiate us from the "willy-nilly" approach, which is to just impulsively react impulsively or haphazardly to stimuli.

Today's photo is of a glass chess set that I have at my house. I think it is beautiful. I am not much of a game player, probably because I am not very good at them, but I do like strategic games like chess and backgammon. I am not great at chess but I admire people who are. Remember the American chess genious Bobby Fisher who took the world by storm by defeating the Russian chess wizard Boris Spassky for the World Championship in Chess in 1972? Chess is the perfect strategy game - you are given a goal: to essentially capture (Checkmate) the opposing players King; you are given the rules and situation: the game is played on a board of 64 squares with 16 pieces to each player and specifically defined moves allowed each piece. Then it is up to the players to strategize their way to victory, loss, or stalemate. In life it is similar: we are given the "playing ground", the rules, and a vast variety of "moves". The main difference is that we decide our own goals. Reaching those goals can be "willy-nilly" stimulus-response or plannned and strategized. In my research I found that Bobby Fisher developed a new game of chess called Chess960. In that game, to eliminate the possibility of memorizing a long string of moves,  the chessboard is randomly set up for each game, with certain guidlines. I have never played the game that way but it is perhaps truer to life, in that everybody inherits different circumstances in their life, or "setups".

I am not too bad at developing a very limited short range chess strategy in my head but often fail to take into account the plans of the opponent which put one of my pieces in jeopardy. Such lack of complete stategy is often harmful to me in the game and generally results in the loss of a valuable piece in the attainment of my strategy. So it is in life: failure to strategize well enough can lead to mistakes, blunders, or failures. But more often than not, we cannot plan for life's obstacles, which generally appear out of the blue. It is our ability to adapt to them and slightly alter our strategy in the moment that sometimes separates success from failure.

pawns

pawns are limited

and can do very little

but they are the advance guard

vulnerable and brittle

with sacrifice

but with advantage of numbers

they storm the opposition

and opponents they encumber

but should one break through

make it to the other side unseen

that one is crowned

and metamorphosed into a queen.

© rt tulley