The Game
April 13, 2003

Yes, I must confess that I played the game—the game that most teenagers seek to play, and so few try not to play (and even fewer succeed in not playing). Many don’t realize that they’re playing this game because it is a natural reaction: we want to be liked. This feeling influences the clothes we wear, what we say, and the actions we take. I do not mean that we should rebel against the majority just for the sake of rebelling. That is pointless and just as evil because the majority are still influencing the way we act. Perhaps you’ve never thought much about this before. Well then think about it now. Or perhaps you say no, no, not me. I’m good about being myself. I want to fit in, but it’s not that much of a problem. To you I say wake up. I can name all of my friends and, for each friend, name an incident where they wanted to fit in and had a consequence (in my opinion) for it. Myself included; I played the game yesterday, and I know my consequence.

There was another who played this game with me, knowing also that she was playing. We had a long discussion afterwards about it. Perhaps her biggest concern, or one of them, was over respect. One can share a lot, that he may or may not have liked to share, while playing the game. The impact could mean his “failure” or “success”. It could also mean the gain or loss of respect to those with morals or who know of their involvement (no matter how shameful) in the game. I realized something tonight and want to tell her: Respect doesn’t come from playing or not playing the game. We all have our weaknesses. Perhaps we have difficulty in stopping from playing the game, but at least we know we are playing it. We may feel ashamed afterwards, but at least we can learn from it. We will fall again, but perhaps, we will fall less hard and eventually less often. We will always fall. However, I think the greater evil is in the people that do not know they are playing the game. Our knowledge of it prevents us from participating too much. But those who do not know will fall the hardest. Do you respect me less for playing the game? I do not respect you less but more. I learned some things about you that I never knew and might never have known. I respect you for knowing you are playing the game and knowing you want to stop. The rest will come with time and with help. A key to this is, however, is that I know that no one is perfect. I do not try to be, and I do not expect you to be. This is why I gain much more respect for you for having realized the game than by your success at preventing from playing it. And knowing that I'll always fail is comforting to me because with each failure comes a success. Without having played the game, I never would have realized so much about you, me, people as a whole. My failure led to my success. So how can you be disheartened if you know you'll always fail but also know that you can always change failure to success? Wouldn't you then always be succeding? How can you not smile knowing this? You also heard some things about a guy that you did not want to hear. It hurt you, and it did me too. But should we have expected different? He was playing the game and, from what I believe, doesn’t know he was (and most likely still is) playing the game. He can do those things because the game warps the morals, and a person's understanding that he is playing this game is the thing that awakens his conscience. We should be happy at where we are instead of where we are not.

She also said something else that interests me as well: you get more “points” in the game if you’re "bad". In the teenage world, the worse you are, the higher your socail status is. Why is it that worse is better? Perhaps the whole game is a rebellion. Teenagers usually want to break away from their parents and find independence. Parents want to protect them and sometimes tend to be overprotective. By being “bad”, teenagers are disobeying the “good” taught by the parents, and thus, believe they are finding independence. If you think that could be an explanation for it, you could also indirectly say that the game goes against “good”. However, parents don’t have it all straight either and aren’t always right. Some teenagers may feel more compelled to rebel against their parent's (s') because they see their parent’s (s’) flaws. Who wants to obey something that they think is unjust? Not me. But use your insight to these flaws for your advantage. That is what I do. I am so much better off because I see the flaws in myself and others and change accordingly. Do not rebel against what you think isn’t right in your household/life by doing harmful things. What good does it get you? It does nothing good, and for sure, you’ll just end up with less freedom.

I know that I have many entries devoted to this topic. I’m sure you’re sick of it, but I’m figuring this stuff out as you are. Each entry helps me figure out the why and the how. While it may be about a lot of the same issues, each one is more detailed and may help you, as it helps me, figure things out more than the one before it. I’d suggest you use this to your advantage.

Love,
Lemme

p.s. The actual game we were playing was “10 fingers”, also known as “Never have I ever…”