The first time I taught a piano lesson, I had never taught a piano lesson before.

After I taught that lesson, I was a piano teacher. And then I taught more lessons, until I eventually reached a threshold of being an experienced piano teacher.

I wasn't exceptionally good at the beginning, but I was good enough. And that, in fact, was all that was necessary. I’m grateful that people asked me to teach them piano so that I didn’t have to put myself out there. I’m not sure I would have done it.

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One of my students used to play a game with his classmates.

He was the only one playing it, but that didn't bother him. That helped him to win.

To win the game, you had to be first: first in line, first one on the train, first one off the train, first to have the answer.

The other students were focused on each other. They were too involved in flirting and joking around to notice who was first.

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Watching over the shoulders of gamer friends and relatives as they choose their avatars for the journey ahead, I’ve learned about the tradeoffs involved.

You can have strength, agility, stamina, or cunning — but not all four to the same degree. Each option has its vulnerabilities and advantages. You’ve got to make decisions about what will be most useful to you, based on your own unique playing style and preferences.

Kinda like life, right? Except in life, some of us get the idea somewhere that we’re supposed to be good at everything and that there shouldn’t be any tradeoffs.

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I have always enjoyed card games and board games, from the long summer afternoons spent playing Spit and Spite & Malice with my siblings and cousins to the more recent winter evenings engaging in Euro-style games like Dominion, Catan, and 7 Wonders (again with siblings and cousins, plus friends and in-laws!). Within a game, you create a little world that is continually subjected to outside forces you must reckon with — a cozy version of actual life.

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I was playing outside with one of my nephews (because I am an exceedingly lucky person, I have five of them). We were throwing poorly inflated balls back and forth, following the kind of arbitrary and unfair rules favored by young children.

In other words, he made the rules, and I followed them.

We threw our balls in the same direction, where they landed side by side in the wet grass. “You lost that time,” he said. “You say, “Darn!”

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