The Lesson of Cribbage

I don't know if you've ever played cribbage but it's a card game based on points which you track by moving pegs on a board.

My husband and I play it frequently as a nice way to pass the evening, spending some time together and chatting.

Well a typical hand has maybe 4 or 6 points, a nice hand 8-10 and a good hand 12 - 16. Once in a while you do a happy dance cuz you have a 20 point hand. The dealer gets a second hand to get extra points and you get to "peg" points while you are playing your hand. In a typical hand in our house you would peg from 1 - 3 points.

What's all this building up to? Well, my husband and I were playing cribbage one night and I felt like I'd been scraping by all night. Not terrible cards, kind of average but nothing easy. Every hand was a mental wrestling match to figure out how to get a decent number of points.

My husband led virtually the whole game, and by a rather substantial amount. We were down to what was probably the last hand and I needed 24 points to win. Now, I was not enjoying this game anymore and I could have just conceeded and put myself out of my misery, but I chose to play it out.

It turns out he did win the game - by ONE point. (Okay all you cribbage players are clamoring that he counted first so technically it was by 24 points). Even though he got to the finish first I decided to count my points. I had pegged my way through about 9 points and wanted to see if I could have made it - and I had 23 paints total.

I know I didn't win, and I would have been short one point even if I would have gotten to count. But I felt good. I was still in the game, right on the heels of the winner. I didn't have any amazing victories or incredible hands. Just a series of ordinary, everyday hands which add up to something pretty good. And I learned some wonderful lessons:

• Lots of little ordinary occurences can add up to something pretty nice.
• Never, ever quit
• It's about what you have and how you feel about it
• Don't compare yourself to others