The Game of Life

I want to speak about Christopher Reeve again, as I've thought a lot about his life and the parallels of his injury to the role he played. He scoffed the idea that he was a real-life Superman, but we would all agree he truly was, in every way a person could be. Of course, every advance he made was earned with immense pain and minute to minute struggle, so to him it wasn't a great, magical thing. It was work. It's all how you look at it: most of us saw the overall result--the end result, but he experienced it as it unfolded.

In life, we often get caught up in what might be rewarded in the long run, forgetting it's what we do now that creates the end result. We're reaching with outstretched hands, skipping over the path. I think of someone playing Monopoly without stopping at any spaces. That person reaches the end faster, but without having played the game, they arrive empty. It is the little things we do every day that makes us winners.

When Christopher Reeve was told his head had been separated from his body--held on only by the muscles of his neck, and that he would have to go through countless surgeries, pain, all that with no promise of ever having movement below the neck again--he looked up at his wife and said, "I guess we should just let me go." And she said to him, "But you're still you. And I love you." Those words changed his life, and brought on a new one.

Every time you feel like quitting anything in your life, or life itself, remember that no matter how difficult things are, you're still you, and somebody loves you. Don't give up. Then take each moment for what it is, knowing it will lead to success.

Life is like a game board. You're riding high, rolling the dice. You own all the squares, have a pile of money, and you know, you just know you're going to win. Then someone hands you a card that says, bankrupt, start at go. It's what you do then that defines who you are. Live like you're always at go.