The Game of Duck, Duck, Goose and The Pursuit of Happiness
A life lesson I learned from preschool
In the game of duck, duck, goose, kids form a circle facing inward. One of the kids goes around the circle tapping the others on the head, saying “duck” with each one. Eventually, the kid will tap someone on the head and shout “goose!” meaning this individual has to chase the picker around to try to catch her.
In the version we played in preschool, if the chosen didn’t catch the picker, he had to sit in the center of the circle (the mosh pit) and wait until the game was over for he had lost.
Eventually, the mosh pit gets filled with students until there is a last kid standing.
One day, one of the boys slapped the back of my head unnecessarily hard when he labeled me the goose. Instead of chasing him, I started crying. Out of sympathy for me, the kids left me alone and didn’t request I go to the middle, even though I should have.
One of the girls who felt sympathy wanted to make me feel better by declaring me the goose only to catch her as she ran purposefully slowly.
Well, when she yelled goose, I got up resentfully and slowly walked as I bawled like a baby still. She couldn’t run slow enough to let me catch her. So it was time for me to accept defeat and claim my rightful place in the mosh pit.
It didn’t make a difference that this girl was clearly trying to cheer me up. I was so deep in my own world of self-pity that I wouldn’t allow anyone to save me. As I went through grade school, I would shed this immature habit for what it was.
All our lives, people will try to save us through whatever means they can. Something as small as asking how your day went can be an attempt to brighten your mood. We can choose to lie about our day or engage in a conversation aimed at lifting our spirits.
But sometimes we act resentfully to help. We convince ourselves that others aren’t really interested in helping us or that they simply can’t. We convince ourselves that they are the ones insane for even perceiving a way out of our Hellhole.
Sometimes it’s a pride thing. Sometimes it has to do with the fatal attraction of being viewed as the victim.
But everyone ends up in the mosh pit many times throughout their lives.
Everyone.
Not one single soul can avoid losing situations in life. To think otherwise would be a conspiracy.
When you acknowledge that everyone reaches pitfalls, you acknowledge that everyone who ever got out of one chose to do so.
I have a friend who has always lived with family members who enabled his pessimistic ways. At the age of 26, he has still never worked a day in his entire life. All our other friends have either died or chosen to ignore him.
He expressed to me his misery over his current state of existence. But when I suggested he at least try to make new friends, he countered this with an excuse revolving the innate shadiness of people.
When I suggested he get a job for the sake of independence and self-fulfillment, he rejected the thought with another illegitimate excuse.
As a result of isolating himself, he thought irrationally, spoke pessimistically, and drove so erratically he put my life in jeopardy every time I stepped into his car.
I had to accept that if he was unwilling to help himself, no one in the world was going to be able to help him. And I couldn’t allow his toxicity to poison me into falling into the same pitfalls as him.
The next time life labels you the goose and someone tries to help you, let them. Get so used to letting people help you that you find the idea of wallowing in your sorrow repulsive.
Because we all know that doing so opens the door to deeper and deeper pitfalls that only become harder and harder to get out of.
