“With the benefit of historical hindsight we can all see things which we would wish had been done differently or not at all.” - Queen Elizabeth II

I read this quote from Queen Elizabeth II at the bottom of a newsletter this morning and was struck by the last 4 words “or not at all.”  This reminded me of one of my Rebecca’s favorite sayings that she recently posted on her “Distilled Wisdom” FB page. It reads…

Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is an even nobler art of leaving things undone.  ~Lin Yutang

I want to be noble and get things done.  But in order for me to be nobler I will need to be wise in what I choose to leave undone.  How many times have I done to much, or just decided it was easier to “do it myself” and thus robbed others of the experience and needed growth they might have gained.  How many times have I not read a book, taken a walk or played a game with one of my children because I was “getting it done”?  Sure there are things we need to get done… but perhaps for you, like for me, there are some things that could be left ”undone”…. at least for a moment, or a day or perhaps even longer.

What do you need to leave undone?

While you ponder that…how about a bit of trivia. 78 years!! WOW

February 6 1935 - Monopoly was first marketed by Charles Darrow, with the symbol of Rich Uncle Pennybags. A patent was issued for the game on December 31, 1935, assigned to Parker Brothers, Inc.(No. 2,026,082). The patent described a “Board Game Apparatus. . . intended primarily to provide a game of barter, thus involving trading and bargaining” in which “much of the interest in the game lies in trading and in striking shrewd bargains.” Illustrations showed the playing board, pieces, title cards of the respective real estate holdings, utilities, “Chance” and “Community Chest” cards, and scrip money. As of 2008, more than 250 million Monopoly games had been sold worldwide.

“Primarily intended to provide a game of barter”.   It allowed for some conversation, persuasion, some seeking the “win win”.  (Seems like a needed skillset for the workforce of today doesn’t it? 

There is a good chance if you are about my age(I’m 48) that you played Monopoly.  I know played the heck out of this game with my 2 brothers.  I wonder now if the primary purpose might be to cause people to gather and connect and to nurture a sense of community within their chests so that they might “get out of the jail” of our sometimes self imposed technological isolation.  (Thinking of yet another study I just read that said we now have more connections and tools to connect us than ever before…but at the same time Americans have less “deep relationship” than ever, and feel more alone and depressed than ever before.)  Maybe, if we spent less playing at being busy and instead got busy playing with people…..maybe we could Advance to Go and collect $200!

My kids don’t play monopoly nearly as much as I did…but we deliberately spend a lot of time playing together.  (You know, play together, pray together, stay together)  The game we play nearly nightly as a family is called Wacky Six.  Other family favorites include “Spot It”, UNO (Ashlyn, age 6  loves to play this and we love to watch her love it so we play alot of it) we also play Sequence, and charades. (did I spell that right?)

What are your favorite family/friend games?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 6th, 2013 at 9:52 am and is filed under T4D. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.