The World Played Chess

by Robert Dugoni

A purpose, I have learned, is rarely found, but revealed. Only when I do not search does the purpose become clear.

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

kids don’t want much, just to know they are loved.

“It’s like that adage. The world played chess while I played checkers.” I had never heard it, so I looked it up. Sometimes we know so little, we are not even playing the same game everyone else is playing. Chess is complex and strategic and requires that we think several moves ahead of our opponent. We need to map out our future and be prepared to make unexpected deviations when necessary.

have had the chance to go to Washington, DC, half a dozen times in my life, and each time I go, I visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. I run my hand over the names etched in the black stone monument, and I try to remember those etchings are more than just letters. Those etchings represent real people who lost their lives far too young—deaths that forever changed the landscapes of their respective families, possibly this country, and maybe the world.