I just learned a valuable life lesson from the game Connect Four. You remember the game, right? You try to line up four red (or black) checkers in a row, while blocking your opponent from doing that same thing. As a kid, I used to be pretty good, but I definitely got schooled by my friend Dave when we played recently.
We were going best of 5. He'd already beat me twice and when it became clear that he was probably going to beat me again, he got frustrated. "What are you doing?" he said. "You can't just play defensively--you won't win. You have to be aggressive--go for what you want." I considered the advice. He was right. I'd been playing extremely defensively, strategizing on how to stop him without giving any consideration to how I was going to beat him. I started playing more aggressively. Too little too late, unfortunately, because he still beat me and we moved on to other activities.
I didn't give the game--or the advice--any more thought until this morning, when I found myself in a conversation about what's wrong with the Democratic Party and the Left in general. Here are my thoughts:
Because the Democrats do not apparently have the cojones to actually propose legislation that would advance the interests of those they supposedly represent, they are left with nothing to do but criticize the proposals of the Republicans. This way, they are buffered from the Republican spin factory and do not have to risk any backlash for unpopular proposals. But this blocking strategy also hasn't moved the Democratic Party platform forward at all. (This is assuming, of course, that there really is such a thing as the Democratic Party platform, and also assuming it actually looks any different from the Republican platform.) Likewise, all too often the Left is so busy defending against conservative attacks on the environment, on working people, and on everything else under the sun that there has been no attention paid to creating a strategy for moving our vision forward. Defensive tactics? Check. Proactive strategy? Um, what?
As I was discussing this, it occurred to me that Dave's advice on Connect Four still worked: you can't just play defensively, because you'll never win. At best, maybe you can stop them, and succeed in achieving a draw. But frankly, that's not much of an achievement. You still haven't gotten what you wanted, and the odds are good that all you've really managed to do is slow them down, not stop them after all.
"Be bold!" my old supervisor used to say, and it's what Dave was telling me too. You have to risk losing in order to win. You have to go after what you want, because your opponent sure as hell isn't going to give it to you. Yes, defense is important, but defense is about holding the line--standing still--when what you really need to be focused on is moving forward--toward your goal, and not just away from theirs.
It suddenly seems like very wise advice for how to live life--not just how to play some silly game (or even just how to run the Democratic party). It's advice I think I'll be taking to heart and trying to incorporate in everything I do.
Now, anyone for a game of Connect Four?
0 comments:
Post a Comment