Lots of epiphanies these past few days. Things that have been a great source of frustration suddenly stopped bothering me, and all that is left is a sense of peace and freedom. Talking things over has helped. Sometimes. And sometimes it helps more to press the mute button and just look at what actually is happening.

It’s like playing a game. With other players. We all agree that we are playing Monopoly. After a while, something feels off. We talk about it. We resume our game. But after a while we notice, things are still the same. Off. We talk some more. We are really going to make an effort this time to get things right! Repeat.

How do we handle this situation? We could keep going anyway, either in the hopes of locating our error or because it’s just what we do: Keep going. We could quit. Or we could stop for a minute to focus on our discussion, and take a good look at our game. We might just realize that we’ve been trying to apply the rules of Monopoly to a chess board all along.