

(Don’t believe me? Just ask if Shoeless Joe Jackson is in the National Baseball Hall of Fame yet.) For example, if you go on Hasbro’s website, it promotes Life as a game of options with “Where will your choices take you?” as their slogan. It’s not just winning that is important it is the perception of how winning is accomplished that truly matters. Yes but it actually goes a lot deeper than that. So what’s the big deal here? Everyone knows that winning is more fun than losing. I insisted that we count although, to be fair, I didn’t make them do the math. They kept groaning with disbelief when I got more money and didn’t even want to count up the money at the end because it was obvious that I would win. I was loving life (heh) but my husband and son did not share my fun. In short, the money was pouring in! I have to tell you, that game was much more fun than the other one. My salary was among the highest, I kept landing on spaces that either gave me tiles or money, and my house was reasonably priced. Lady Luck was on my side and I could practically do no wrong. The next time we played, I had the exact opposite experience. Try Online Counseling: Get Personally Matched I did everything ‘right’ yet I had little to show for it. I was especially irritated when I got penalized for not having homeowner’s insurance because, with all my financial woes, how was I expected to pay for that? When I finally reached retirement, I was so frustrated. My house was the $200,000 mansion (I was hoping for the split level but no dice) which I couldn’t pay for and for some reason I kept landing on spaces in which I had to pay for stupid stuff. Although I went to college and initially chose a good career and salary, I was forced to change careers and got a drastically reduced salary card. The first night my family and I played the game, I was the big loser. So, it’s a great little capitalistic type of game.

You also collect Life tiles that give you a certain amount of money that you count up when you retire at the end of the game. As you move around the board, you land on spaces that either make you pay (like when you get a speeding ticket or the stock market crashes) or give you money (you can win the Nobel or write a best seller). The career and salary have nothing to do with each other (you could be a teacher making $100,000 or an athlete with a $30,000 salary) and they, as well as the house card, are drawn randomly. Now I’m recommending it for everyone!įor those of you unfamiliar with The Game of Life (or Life), it is a board game in which you choose cards for a career, salary, and a house as you spin the wheel that tells you where to move. However, until I played the game of Life the other week, I didn’t realize how a game could enhance my understanding of actual life. Depending on the type of game being played, they can promote teamwork, togetherness (“The family that plays together stays together!”), patience, good sportsmanship, strategizing, good hand-eye coordination and the list goes on. There are a host of benefits to playing games, ones we can probably all figure out.
