SCRABBLE: New Beginnings
We each have the experience of countless new beginnings in our lives. In some respects, that’s one of the same ways scrabble mimics life, each game is a new beginning with a blank board and an endless possibility of 2-to-7-Letter-Words, waiting to be picked, from the scrabble tile bag.
In life, new opportunities surround us, some passively awaiting our discovery while others blare loudly on repeated commercials, “Choose me, choose me.” In scrabble, players find some words that magically form instantly, being drawn randomly, yet appearing tile by tile in the correct order to form common, conversational words. Many others words sit on our racks, among the random tiles, hiding in plain sight, because out brains and eyes haven’t unscrambled them yet; and many other words that are possible to play are out of our reach because we just don’t know them.
We don’t know what we don’t know.
A very small 6% of people continue pursuing knowledge, on purpose, their whole lives; the other 94% are generally content with what they know and kick-back and get comfortable.
Our past-knowledge can be very valuable whenever we encounter a new beginning. If we draw upon that past knowledge we can frequently avoid the pitfalls and the bumps in the roads. In the game of scrabble we frequently build our word knowledge by learning the words played against us by our opponents. If we are observant, we learn strategies from others and can go on to use those same ploys for ourselves, in future competitions.
Some people find new beginnings very scary. In life, some of those people are the ones who remain in bad jobs and bad relationships for fear of the unknown that lives in ‘change’. Those people know how bad it is where their feet are currently planted, and just keep on accepting it. In scrabble, some people tell themselves that they ‘are not capable of learning ‘MORE’; those people take the fun that they find, but rarely experience the ‘thrill of victory’ in the rarefied air of the Champions Circle.