Checkmate

So I was talking to one of my roommates today and it made me think... go figure. I thought about something my dad had taught me to do a long time ago. He was teaching me how to play chess. First we started off with a game called take-me. You try to put your pieces in places where your opponent must take them and the first one to clear their side of the board wins. It is supposed to teach you what not to do, that way when you play a real game you can avoid making stupid mistakes. Then, he taught me a simple rule of thumb and it is to think two-steps ahead. If you didn't have a plan or a goal then it is real tough to be able to see not only where you are going but what your opponent was planning on doing as well.

You can take these same things and use them in real life too. You can think two steps ahead and try to figure out what people are thinking, to see what you need to do to reach your own goals. You know what you don't want to do, so don't put yourself in a position where that may happen, where you can be "taken." But as I talked to my roommate I realized that some times I took these things too far. Right now I am studying to be a Mechanical Engineer in college. It is a good occupation, will pay well in the future, will have good benefits, and it will help me get where I want to be. But is that really what I want to do? And that is where my roommate and I's discussion began.

The question is not really what do I want to do. There are hundreds, thousands of different things that a person CAN do. But what they SHOULD do is completely different. You see every one of us is an individual. We have different personalities, skills, likes and dislikes. We are all different shapes. And kind of like a little baby with its toys, you take the block and put it in the hole that has the same shape. You really shouldn't be trying to jam yourself into any old "hole" or job that looks good. First you need to figure out your "shape" and look for what you can fit into. So again the question is not really what do I want to do. The question is what am I made to do? Who am I? Where do I fit in?

Even though I think I would make a fine engineer, would I truly enjoy it? Would it wear me down? There is a lot to think about and lot for me to discover, so why wait! The time is now. But I guess what I am trying to say, is we need to figure out who we are, how we move, how we tick. Which piece are you? Are you a pawn and only move steady and straight? Are you a knight and jump, jump, jump around? Are you a bishop and only move side to side? Whatever you are you need to figure it out, otherwise you may end up in a place you didn't ever want to be without really knowing how you got there in the first place. And then, checkmate... Take control of your life.