I was laying in bed last night playing Solitaire on my trusty iPhone, my nightly get out of my head so I can fall asleep ritual..when I started seeing the game completely differently.

I play the 3-card draw version, do you know which one I mean?  Where you want to have your aces on top and then fill them up with cards of the same suit in order up to King to win?  And every time there is an open slot you can slide an available King in?  And then when you need a card, you draw three instead of one to make it more challenging?

Was that totally confusing? So all of a sudden I see all these piles as the challenges we have in life that we have to get through.  And so often one challenge in life bleeds into others and become our successes.

And I was noticing that I get really excited when I get to move a King over…more so even then when I move the Ace up top.

Why would that be?  And it dawns on me that just as in life there is so much celebration along the way, but when a giant hurdle is finally completed, it just means we are moving onto a new a challenge.  And I’m ready to get back into the meat of it.

And I love the way the pile keeps turning over.  It’s like our opportunities in life, and when something comes around and we aren’t ready for it, it often comes back again.  Sometimes it looks the same, but sometimes we have changed and didn’t even know we needed that thing that is now totally essential to our progress.

The other life lesson truth about this game is that sometimes, we just have to start over.  Make a new plan, use different resources or the same resources in different ways.

Which led my now very active and not at all tired brain onto the next logical wish, if solitaire were really like life, we could have a reverse button and get to try out some placements and take it back if we don’t like it.

So…no reverse button makes Solitaire a lot like life…but certainly not exactly like life.

I just thought you might like to have something to think about that’s deep while you’re mindlessly flipping cards.

This is Elisha, for Seattle Acupuncture Getting Deep with Solitaire acting like life.

Sweet dreams…