Life Is a Game in a Novel

Everything is connected and nothing is random. The inspiration to play Apples to Apples with an invisible fourth player was to learn an object lesson on the first pillar of acceptance and how there is a deeper meaning behind every event, even something as silly as a card game.

The perfect cards selected for the fourth player by the judge demonstrated that “random” happenings are not random but orchestrated by cosmic intelligence, the mind of God who designed the game and wrote the story of your life. Then, after the game, you returned to your editing of the novel to find that the characters are playing Apples to Apples and the green card is Sweet, one of the cards used in your game at a critical point in the game. What are the odds of that happening? And what was that synchronicity telling you? Life is a game in a novel. Life is stranger than fiction.

The Sweet green card was drawn at the point in the game when you resisted the fourth player losing. You wanted the invisible fourth player to win so that you could post it on Facebook and amaze all your friends, then impress them with your theory that the subconscious of the judge picked the perfect “random” card. Because of your identification with the possible outcome and resistance, your thinking was confused, your emotions discordant, and your actions clumsy, putting the fourth player’s card face up, then Hespera’s. This is the state of ego identification that causes you to struggle against the flow instead of going with it. In this state, you drop things, make wrong decisions, and get into accidents. You experienced this at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic when you didn’t accept it and feared death.

During the game, Julie experienced the same state, only she was resisting the fourth player winning. She wanted Hespera to win. Her thoughts too were confused as she struggled to make up her mind, her emotions were discordant, and she clumsily picked the card she really didn’t think was best, which happened to be the fourth player’s. Hespera was okay with the fourth player or herself winning or losing. She wasn’t invested in it and accepted what is without resistance, without any identification with an outcome. As a result, she won the game.

In the novel, Royal Pain, Harper doesn’t have a good card for Sweet and hasn’t won any green cards, while her friends have won several. She identifies with being a loser and switches hands with the prince, thinking he has a winning hand. But he wins the next round using one of her “loser” cards. Her thoughts, emotions, and actions during the game were telling her the same message about resistance and acceptance. But she didn’t learn, for, later on, she resists what is happening, her falling in love with the prince, and, in the process, hurts his feelings in a clumsy gesture of rejection.

So, learn the lesson from the game and the novel. Accept what is and you’ll win the game of life. Your story will have a satisfying ending and you’ll live happily ever after.