The way people interpret language always amazes me. When I wrote the word game in my Lab-Rat post last week, I meant it in terms of the game of improvisation I mentioned in my blog post The Grand Game. When everyone else (except Crista) read the word game they took it in completely other directions: literal games, the psychological games people play with other, or both.
That’s what makes communication so interesting and yet so tricky. I didn’t get what I thought I was looking for, but in the end I learned some great lessons from what I did get.
So, let’s take a look at what I got:
The literal game players tend to quit when it’s no longer fun (Friar), when the other participants are being bad losers (Barbara), or when they themselves are being bad losers (James). Friar might give it a few more tries, but only the Urbane Lion will stick it out to the end.
When Brett, the Urban Panther and Steph are faced with psychological games they walk away, with Friar again taking another few tries just to make sure that it’s the situation and not him.
Actually there’s no surprise here. Everyone when they pushed themselves ended up having a great time pushing themselves. Now, because I’d asked for a success, I got the success stories, but it does show that sometimes if we are willing to stretch our comfort zones a bit we’ll surprise ourselves and come up with some superb and unexpected outcomes.
The trick here, of course, is to know when it’s good to stretch and when it’s better to walk away. I’d say for everyone that would depend on the situation, their mood, etc…
The responses to the complete the sentence exercise fell into two categories: shut down or push (or both). Let’s take a look:
Someday Lessons:
2 Responses to “Playing the Game: Lab-Rat Roundup”
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I read your other post, the one in which you persist in looking for good food, but I think I’m still unclear as to what your intentions were last post. Can you explain more what you meant? Then we can answer again, accordingly, and learn a new lesson! Or were we still sort of on track learning not to give up but instead to see things as a challenge? Sort of?
steph´s last blog post..Perspective
@Steph
Yes, the lesson was the one I wanted to impart, but people got to it a different route.
When I said game, I meant the rules of improvising and applying those to life which are: you never answer a question with a single word or a “no”; you never shut down someone else’s idea; and you should be as creative as possible with your responses.