The Truth of Life in a Matching Game

November 18, 2007

Welcome, new visitor! My name is Ari, the man behind Aries9. Here I share my thoughts on music and life, so you can get to know me and my music. Thanks for visiting!

Today I was playing a Winnie the Pooh Matching Game with my daughter. You know, the kind where you just spread a bunch of cards face down, and try to find pairs by turning cards over 2 at a time, taking turns.

At first, obviously you don’t know where any of the cards are. So you’re blindly turning cards over, trying to commit to memory as many of the card locations as possible. You’ll spend a few turns not getting any pairs. Then you start to see them. At first it’s more of a luck, but soon you start getting more and more, because you know where they are by then. And toward the end, you’re just raking in — pairs after pair, and you’re rushing to the end.

And this is so true of life. About doing anything. Learning instruments, learning languages — the starting is the hardest part. You put in time and efforts, and you see no results. Nothing. A lot of people give up here. Then you slowly start getting it. And you move faster and faster. Pretty soon you don’t have to make any more efforts — you’re moving forward effortlessly. We talk about the “snowball effect” the same way.

So, life and the world is governed by this same rule. Starting is the hardest part, but what you may not know is that what you’re doing today, although it doesn’t seem to be adding up, it seems like it has no effect or improvement — has an impact down the road, somewhere farther than you can see right now.

Are you doing things with your eyes on a year, two years, five years, ten years from now? You should. And while you also have to keep your eyes on here and now, don’t get discouraged, don’t lose hope. And don’t stop. There is no reason to do so. Rewards being out of sight doesn’t mean that they’re not on the way.

What a relief that is.

Filed under: Ari, Reflections |