Games can change your life and career goals

I started playing chess when I was in high school in my home country Sierra Leone. I was in a boarding school with many boys who were talented, and we all had the knack for playing board games like chess, checkers, scrabbles etc. After graduating from high school, chess became a pastime and I often catch up with my high school colleagues and we pit our wit over each other in the game of chess. As I entered college and was immersed in my studies to get my undergraduate degree, I did not hold sway in the games but seem to find time to connect with new friends I have not met in high school over the chess squared board that demands a highbrow. They say children who play chess wear glasses and are terrifically intelligent, neither I, nor any of my chess mates and school mates wore glasses.

Chess demands from us critical thinking, caution, bravery, reflection, tact, craftiness, quick mettle, circumspection, vision, interconnectedness of all the pieces, evaluation of the value added and sacrifices of 'pawning' to seek an advantage in the game or to demolish a priced piece. It shows us that the world can be at war either in physical warfare, or silent warfare, (the war of ideas and the mind). 

Chess taught me to be competitive and courageous, to be aware of my surroundings and be cautious, to not just be focusing on attacking but to defend, to look before I leap and to be temperate in unleashing a plan. Chess also taught me about the entrenched hierarchies that we see in everyday life in every sphere of work and not just the monarchical symbolism that the game represents. Chess also portrays the rank and file in every society (pawns), but to treat those considered of a lesser status as in (pawns), in exchange for an advantage could be inhumane and harrowing. Yet the use of pawns can be seen in everyday life of our society, in politics and of companies and institutions which is often inhumane. 

In king Lear, Gloucester evokes the sense of human sacrifice perhaps akin to the pawn in chess. Here, Shakespeare may not have alluded to the game of chess but the Bard, may well let us see a kind of pawn in the human struggle for existence and this time from the deities.  

"As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; 

They kill us for their sport". 

By the use of pawns in the game of chess, I was taught about the long history of servitude and sacrifice of servants to maintain the kingship, and the history of the interconnectedness of state and church as in the Kings, Queens, Bishops and Knights. It talks about the transient nature of power, the vicissitudes of life and the conquest of empires. 

Perhaps when Shakespeare harped upon this in Macbeth, 

"It hath been 

The untimely emptying of the happy throne

 And fall of many kings",

 we are made aware that even the thrones of kings and queens, the revels, the bliss, and splendor they enjoy can be dissolved and destroyed. Or maybe, the game of Chess was a clear revolt against the institutions of Kingdoms, for the object of the game is to capture the King by breaking the walls of the castles, making the King defenseless and putting the king under checkmate. The battle for checkmating the kings is a mindboggling experience and the powers of the queen to protect herself and the King is superior to all. Did chess reveal the power of feminism, or the trustworthiness of women in in authority, by putting so much power in the hands of a Queen? But by far, I am often awe-inspired that every piece in the game of chess can be rewarding and even a wandering pawn can be a great threat in this game of trying to subdue the King. 

The game shows that life can be a gambit, and a whole lot of risk-taking, and that risk should be well calculated before executed because it could make or mar. Chess also shows that the might of someone to gain advantage and win is not about how much you have acquired but how you use what you have to your advantage, and how you can tactically seek an advantage and win with small but accurate steps that strategically puts you in the position of getting rid of the thrown (The King) in Checkmate. I know many chess players will expand on this insight to show how far the game can impact the way we look at life.

I have often been a risk-taker in all my life and as an entrepreneur who aspires to make a difference, I have created many gambits in my life to push me in a situation of advantage. For instance, in instituting innovative Information Communication Technology Programs in Africa and in Sierra Leone to benefit children and youth affected by a decade of conflicts, I often faced a barrage of obstacles and stumbling blocks and frustrations from government officials with all the unnecessary bureaucracies. 

Apart from lobbying with local government in the youth Ministries and in the Educational and Development sectors, navigate my way into some tough bureaucracies, to carry out my programs in Sierra Leone, I may have moved a bit further from using lobbying skills, to utilize the chess-like gambit. I may have used gambit to effectively confront the challenges in getting to my goals in implementing a range of postwar-recovery programs and to support my innovative educational programs.

For instance, I can recall now those days when I often have to take actions by becoming openly vocal, airing my views on radio and national TV to call attention to the system of unnecessary bureaucracies that levy high charges on educational programs that can aid a critical mass of young people and support them in the post war recovery efforts. Those radio and TV interviews in which I was guest was not just for national awareness raising about my efforts, but often was meant to spark debates and drew attention to programs that can bring government to provide duty-free concessions to non-profit organizations delivering essential services to communities, thus creating a rethink about the governments approach to support nonprofits and educational programs. These efforts did not just impact my work, it supported a lot of other local organizations, thereby changing policies that help to improve the society. I may have been lucky to go unscathed by the wrath and anger exuded from a few government officials for exposing these obstacles in the way of progress. I look back at the degree of risk now and thought it was worth it, for it effectively shaped ideas and changed policies that impacted the common good of our society. It was bravery that created opportunities for my programs to scale and to create results of greater impact.

As I work on my goals now in pursuit of a Masters of Science in Law, I am taking a keen look at the many issues of public policies and cases that confront our society on a diurnal basis today. I think of my lessons in chess that partly informed my world and opened my mind to the struggles for existence, the gambits and the pawns that we can sometimes inevitable find ourselves and how we might pull ourselves out of the fray through tact, efforts, wit, courage. I think that perhaps the chess game can well be a reflection on the often-high risk we have to take to change our lives and those of others. I have used those lessons in chess to carry out goals as I did during the war years and in crisis-ridden times and through personal involvement, commitment and not least of all through the fact that I was not afraid to “swim against the tide”, in setting positive examples of hope for others to follow. Tell me what games changed your life/career goals.

Here is an example of my current efforts to carry on the beautiful hope.