The rules of the game

In times of peace and prosperity, most humans relax and enjoy themselves. It is only those who were born in conflict that find it hard to sit still. It isn't because we don't like peace, it is because we don't really feel comfortable with the rules. Often we will choose the rules we know over the peaceful situation with rules we don't know.


As we humans grow up, we learn rules that allow us to survive. In effect, life is a game and those who learn the rules the best survive the best. We don't all play the same game though. Some of us are playing tic-tac-toe, others are playing chess and others are playing real life mine sweeper. The game we grow up in has a large say in  the rules we learn and how well we can do whilst still playing the same game.


The game is not fixed and we can hop from one game to another. Sometimes that is not necessarily our choice, and sometimes it is our choice. The hardest shift isn't the change of game, but learning the new rules. Frequently we will prefer to hop back to the old game, even if that game is unpleasant, rather than learn new rules.


You may have noticed in your travels in your life repeats of the same pattern, or avoidance of things that are new. When you do something new, you feel uncomfortable and look for ways to use your old rule set to make the new system easier to comprehend, or look like the game you are use to. When that can't be done, you feel very uncomfortable and try to escape.


It is learning how to adapt to new games, learn new rules and feel comfortable with those rules for that game that denotes good recovery practice.