Mobile Game Insp

The other day I opened the mobile game Solitaire on my phone and noticed a note at the bottom of the screen. It read, “There is no shame in pressing undo.” My finger froze mid-air, unable to tap “new deal,” as I wondered, “When did my mobile game turn into Yoda?”
 

This game’s undo button lets a player remove their last move, or multiple moves. It’s akin to a do-over, a chance to try again.
 

“There is no shame in pressing undo.” Wow, that is some great advice, I thought. Pertinent to all of life. Of course, if Yoda had said it, it would’ve sounded more like, “Pressing undo, no shame, there is.” But I digress.
 

I find this mobile app aphorism about the wisdom of starting over unexpected advice from a surprising source. In my experience, game apps rarely hold my hand and tell me it’s okay to make mistakes, learn from them and begin anew. Clearly, it’s an endorsement for second chances. All this from a game app?
 

Even Buddha agrees with my mobile Solitaire's guidance saying, “You can always begin again.” Some claim Jack Kornfield wrote that Buddha-ism, but, again, I digress. And since I now know there’s no shame in starting over, I’ll proceed in doing so.
 

My point is I never expected life coaching from a mobile game. It’s one thing if inspiration comes from Sinatra singing, “Dust yourself off and start all over again,” or Henry Ford imparting, “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” But, it’s quite another when said inspiration comes via my means of escapism.  
 

I think it’s the word shame in the phrase that caught my attention. I have a complicated relationship with games on my phone. We’ve broken up more than once. Always after I suddenly regain consciousness and realize the passage of time I frittered away bent over my phone. Really, what had I accomplished? New levels? More points? Index finger dexterity? This is when the capital “S” shame would creep in. A calculation based on that lost time. Certainly, I have more important things to do. 

Even if I only played during a break, after innumerable games, I’d lift my dazed head, feel bad and imagine I could have knitted a sweater in that time. Not that I knit, but couldn’t I at least learn how to knit instead of zoning-out in a biome-themed world collecting rockets?
 

Needless to say, that’s how Wordscapes got deleted from my phone. I couldn’t quit it. Thus, we had to part. In the divorce, I lost my hard-earned collection of bullseyes and lightbulbs, but walked away with better posture.  
 

Now, I limit my screen time because apparently I’m an ancient toddler and can’t be trusted. So I picked New York Times word games. Their appeal? Only one of each game a day. No endless playing. And at night, before I tuck into the novel I’m reading, I play one game of Boggle. One. Maybe if Boggle shared some words of encouragement, I’d be enticed to play more. I mean, just once, couldn’t it say, “You are worth a mega-power-up?”
 

The outlier to my mobile game diet is Solitaire. It’s a filler game to play if I have a few extra minutes in the evening. And I’m glad I do so, because it’s brought me random enlightenment for no knowable reason. I like that.
 

Most days the note in my Solitaire app is oddly a sales pitch for its own game, which I’m already playing. There’s probably a Yoda-esque message in that somewhere. Other days, its note causes me to pause. 
 

This morning, I opened the game and was greeted by this wisdom, “Remember, not all deals are winnable.” I smiled. I know this counsel to be true. Whether in Solitaire or in life, not all deals are winnable. But I still want to play both anyway - all while keeping myself open to what assistance is offered along the way. No matter if they are hints and undos or lightbulbs and mega-power-ups, the truth is there’s no shame in getting help or, indeed, starting again.