Electric Bard

When you’re watching a soccer game (football to some), the clock ticks up to note how much time has passed. The actual time the game will end is a little fuzzy, ultimately up to the referee to decide. I think a lot of us live our lives that way. We know it’s going to end, but not sure when, exactly, so we kind of run around, trying to work with others towards a common goal.

In the game of ice hockey, the clock ticks down to show you how much time is left. Hence, the familiar announcement “last minute of play…”, which usually spurs the players into one last effort to do whatever it is they can to win the game. So I got to thinking, what if my life was timed that way. If I was given the rules of the game early on, say, “you have 65 years, 3 months, and 5 days to live, and there will be no overtime, no scoring shoot outs. You get to play regulation time only”, what would I have done differently with the time I’ve “played” so far? What would my “game strategy” have been? Would I play defensively, try to stay out of the penalty box? Or maybe offensively, driving to score on every shift? Maybe casually, like hey, it’s just a game?

Of course the game strategy we employ as adults is very much the result of our upbringing. Were we raised in an atmosphere of conservative pragmatism, dreamy optimism, or a confused mix of both? Was it OK to be ourselves growing up? Is it OK to be ourselves now?

Well, thinking backwards from the end is something some of us can do, and those lives give rise to phrases like “living for today”, “live each day as if it were your last”, and so on. If I were living today as if it were my last, what would I do today? Party like it’s 1999? Or get the Dalai Lama on the phone for some last minute advice?

So guys, we’re in the game, the clock is ticking down, and if our game strategy hasn’t made us feel like winners so far, maybe we need to call a time out, have a chat with our peers and the coach (hmmm, maybe finding a coach is a good idea at this point), and figure out how we’re going to play out the remaining time. Because wouldn’t we really prefer to have our victory in the bag before the clock runs out?