All exists here, no doubt, for the delight of existence, all is a game or Lila; but a game too carries within itself an object to be accomplished and without the fulfillment of that object would have no completeness of significance.
— Sri Aurobindo
Here’s my advice:
Stay in the game, whatever your game is. There’s other advice about figuring out what your game is, and what causes happiness for you. Many of us struggle with that question for sure and for too long or sometimes forever — never quite settling on a game plan. But this post isn’t about that.
This post is about staying in the game. Because life is indeed a game. You lay out the chess pieces, make your moves and then, one way or another, the game ends. Lights out.
So it really isn’t whether you win or lose; it really is how you play the game. Because at the end of the day we’re all losers. But I don’t think we want to be quitters.
I will admit there is an appropriate time and a place for quitting (I learned this the hard way with my divorce but at least I learned it); this type of quitting is called stopping. Or changing directions. So it’s not really quitting at all.
When, on the other hand, your desires haven’t changed but the going gets rough — don’t quit. Freshen up your lipstick and keep going.
Staying in the game is about throwing drops in the bucket. It doesn’t always feel like much but it does feel like you kept going. Persistence is subtly and quietly powerful. Persistence is power as it was meant to be: peacefully magnificent.
Here’s the thing: Drops in the bucket will add up for as long as you keep adding them. Keep adding drops to the bucket until you and your life overflow.
Don’t stop until you’re proud.
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