BE A LITTLE NICE, DAD.
My daughter got this Connect4 game as gift during the holidays. And immediately, she needed a partner to play it with. She found me and we set about it.
After I won the first game I took the time and showed her what she was doing wrong that made me win. I explained how she needed to keep one eye on me as I schemed to connect 4 and the other eye on her own strategy to connect her 4.
I won the 2nd game. Again I told her how she missed my plot. And I warned her I wasn’t going to play easy just so she could win. I won the 3rd and 4th game. It was 4 -Nil.
My wife got upset. ‘What kind of a father are you? Be a little nice and allow the little girl win some.’ Her disapproval fell on deaf ears. I won the 5th and 6th game. It was 6-Nil.
At that point I felt really bad, like an Agbaya. The sad look on her face made the guilt more excruciating. I wanted us to stop playing but she wanted to still play in the hope that she might just get one win in. So we played again. I won the 7th and 8th.
I just didn’t know how to play her easy and make her win on a platter, I felt it would be cheating and deceptive. She gave up and wouldn’t play with me for a while.
Two weeks later we travelled home for the Christmas holidays and she took the game along. I was in the room when she ran in and jumped on me in excitement announcing how she was winning all her cousins, the 6 of them!
You needed to see the look on her face. The taste of victory had never looked sweeter. I was elated.
What if I had played easy? What if I had allowed her win me on a platter? This moment was what I would be missing.
And the losses she got from two of them, she handled like a champ and played them again till she led the scores. For days my daughter was walking on sunshine.
What you have handed to you on a platter, you don’t get the opportunity to master. Whatever comes easy hardly lasts long.
Certain losses only prepare you for a bigger win.
Don’t wish your journey was easier, pray for strength to overcome a difficult one.
For stamina, strength and skills are first cousins with hard work, heartbreaks and disappointments.
Victory is sweeter and more fulfilling when you look back at the many losses you had before arriving here.
My daughter and I played again after the holidays. It ended 7-1. You see that one win she got, I cherish it more than the many times I won. And if you ask her, she would only tell you she won Daddy once without telling you the scores.
