Playing the Human Game: Part One
Filed Under Holistic Law |
My life seems to work better when I think of it as a game: the Human Game of Being. I have also discovered that my clients’ legal problems tend to get resolved more easily—with better results and less stress—when they agree to play the Human Game with me. Here is how we play.
I start out by asking them a question:
Do you believe that you can change the past?
Then I sit back and wait for a response. So far, 100% of my clients have answered this question with some variation of “No. I don’t believe that I can change the past.” That’s when I ask them if they would like to play the Human Game with me. The game has three basic rules:
Rule Number One: Choose to believe that the past is perfect.
There are lots of sayings that extol the wisdom of not being upset about the past, like “there’s no sense in crying over spilt milk,” or “that’s water over the dam,” or “that’s water under the bridge.” What I am talking about in this game is more than that.
In order for the game to be successful, the players need to choose to believe that the past is not only not worth getting upset about; they need to believe that it’s actually perfect. Here’s why: If the player believes that the past is anything less than perfect, the player will spend the player’s energy ruminating over “should have” or “could have” scenarios, detracting from the purpose of the game, which is to transform the player’s legal problems into opportunities for personal growth and positive change.
For those players who question the wisdom of such a rule, I go on to explain that if they chose to believe that the past were not perfect, they would then want to change the past so that it would be perfect. Since they have already acknowledged that they cannot do that, then their wanting to make the past perfect would be wanting to do something that they know they cannot do. That would just make them frustrated, angry, and resentful, and produce a decidedly less-than-perfect result. In other words, it would be crazy-making. It just doesn’t make sense to go down that path. It doesn’t work!
Rule Number Two: TUNE IN NEXT WEEK TO FIND OUT!
Philip J. Daunt, Esq.
