Snakes & Ladders

I was thinking recently about how the things in my life that I battle with fall into two main categories. There are the things that come with absolute ease that I find difficult to resist. They require no effort at all. The only hard thing about them is to not do them or to stop doing them. Even good things are no longer good when taken to excess… Your fajitas come to mind Derek!

Then there are all the things in my life that require real effort on my part but that I should be doing. Both are matters of self-discipline, on the one hand resistance is called for, and on the other, exertion.

The old people had a saying about things going wrong. They would say that it’s going down hill. This is what got me thinking about all of this. The things that happen easy without any effort on my part are the down hill things. The things that require effort on my part are of course the uphill things.

My friend Jim did say one time that life is like a game of snakes and ladders. They call it chutes and ladders now but when I was a kid it was always snakes and ladders and I did some checking. Interestingly enough the game of snakes and ladders originated in ancient India where it was called, among other things, paramapada sopaanam which translates ‘the ladder to salvation’. Could the snake be a reference to Satan? Either way, I think Jim is right. Life is like snakes and ladders. There are two main categories of disciplines that I need to work on if I am going to do well. Both are critical. I must climb the ladders and avoid the snakes. I must work hard and push myself to do good things that don’t come easy. And I must resist the temptation to let good things that do come easy cause me to start sliding or bad behaviours that are always destructive take me down.

Maybe that’s where the expression ‘O chute!’ comes from? Or maybe not…