The game of Jenga is a favorite block stacking game, played by many Americans to pass the time. The basic concept of the game is to start by building a tower of little wooden blocks, three on each row, rotating at every level as the tower becomes higher and higher. When the game play begins, each player, in turn, must pull one of these blocks out of the tower and place it on the top of the tower without the tower falling down.
Many times, people will play the game of Jenga in their moral life. They have built a strong tower in their career, in their family, and with their own personal satisfaction. They get restless of the slow process of building their tower and begin to cut corners. They begin to pull the blocks from their tower to lay at the top. Sometimes they will make a bad moral decision that will pull out a block, because they want to get ahead on a financial decision. Sometimes they will pull out a block, because they want to get ahead on a relationship that they should not be in. And other times, they will pull out a block, because they want to get ahead on their stress and begin to self-medicate with alcohol or drugs. Before long, these people will pull out all of the blocks on their tower and the tower crashes to the ground.
As one of the Commanding General’s Five Imperatives states, we are to “Live an Honorable Life”. Playing Jenga with our moral life does not lead to an honorable life at all, but leads to the life we’ve built crashing to the ground. The best way to avoid this crash is to not play at all.
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This post was written as an article in the Second Infantry Division Magazine, The Indianhead June 2017, Page 5.
Photo by Micha? Parzuchowski on Unsplash