The World Played Chess

by Robert Dugoni

Every minute of every day is a gift, and growing old a privilege, not a right.

Someone once said that failure is easier to live with than regret, and it pierced my heart like an arrow. Dreams are hard to catch, aren’t they? Especially if you don’t have the courage to try.

“Why’d you give her back the ten dollars?” “Never take anything that doesn’t belong to you or that you haven’t earned,” he said, sliding into the car. “You never know who you’re stealing from, and what that money means to them.”

“Regret is so much harder to live with than failure,” William said. “You got a chance to be somebody and to do something. Man, I envy you.”