As I continue to enjoy my evolving “big picture, middle age mind”, or so I have read, I relish the analogy of life’s relationships as all occurring on myriad overlapping chessboards. I further note that on every chessboard, both mine and those of all I am in relations with, I am a piece, sometimes queen, a few times king, most times pawn, and when in the zone, knight. :-) This consideration has caused me to meditate more and more on the reality that I, and so we all, am a pawn on every someones’ chessboard that I engage with. Everyone has an agenda for me. I play a role of getting everyone who values me something they want else they do not value me, else they probably do not perceive themselves as even being relationship with me, despite the fact that I might perceive otherwise based on my own chessboards.
Acceptance of this reality helps me to better tolerate being manipulated and used, sometimes even betrayed, by others. With this understanding, I am able to take all this less personally knowing that this is the nature of things. I can even have compassion on the idea that everyone is mostly just moving me around, sacrificing me, advancing me, promoting/demoting me, etc., in order to win some particular chess game they are playing against someone else, or maybe even themselves, or worst yet, me. Additionally, I work to understand what piece I am, queen, knight or pawn, and with this understanding to be the best piece I can be, as I understand I should, in order to help people win their (legitimate) chess games.
This is most challenging when you find yourself simultaneously a black and white piece on a board where 2 people are playing against one another and you want both of them to win. These paradoxical situation definitely require thinking beyond a zero-sum paradigm.
So remember, we are all pawns on someone’s chess board and may we have the grace, wisdom and guilelessness to be the best pawn possible in on every board we are being played in order to manifest the Great Commandment of “love” in the world.
Some good reads that compliments this one I wrote awhile ago are at http://www.delicious.com/cadelarge/wiseworking_games
Happy checkmating to you!
