‘I settled on a game called I am a contribution.  Unlike success and failure, contribution has no other side.  It is not arrived at by comparison.’*

I know, whenever I compare myself with others, I lose.

I choose to be content.

One of the things I’ve discovered later in life is that I’m really satisfied with the “second seat.”**  I love the way it allows me to ask questions like, “What if?”  There’s a contentment in following where the questions lead.  It’s not the easy way; it places me on the path of perseverance, a path of faithfully carrying out the things I must do.

This is because I am discontented.

My discontent is what informs me about what it is I must do.  It’s brought me to the “second seat” so I can support others be who they must be.  When discontent is mixed with a dream it becomes a cause, it leads to a contribution.

Everyone has a different contribution.

Because this contribution game has no need of comparisons it’s an infinite game^ in which everyone’s life-contribution becomes a gift for everyone else.^^

We all have a contribution to make – becoming a generative being is something we learn.

Frank Laubach came up with a game with minutes, believing that we can invent some way of making a contribution to others in every minute.*^

To be inventive with every minute is daunting to say the least, but each day provides many moments in which we can make our contribution and be a gift.

“How will I be a contribution today?”*

(*Ben Zander in Rosamund and Benjamin Zander’s The Art of Possibility.)
(**The “second seat” doesn’t mean I want this place instead of the third or fifty third seat, but whether it be an individual or a group of people, I prefer the second place, allowing others the first.)
(^See James Carse’s Finite and Infinite Games.  An infinite game includes as many as possible for as long as possible, and if the rules threaten to exclude people or close the game down, they are changed.)
(^^Roz and Ben Zander suggest “finite” games offer us opportunities to hone our skills.  A finite game includes some and excludes many, it has a certain duration, and always plays by the rules.)
(*^Frank Laubach’s The Game With Minutes.)