This latest assignment was to take a blogging challenges and craft a blog from it.  I had thumbed through numerous challenges.  But Red Echo Date appealed to me.  A quote is given each week and anyone can treat it anyway they want in a story, another echo, etc.

This week’s quote was from Albert Einstein: “You have to learn the rules of the game.  And then you have to play better than anyone else.”

I heard something similar in my newspaper job in California.  Aaron, the sports editor, was also in charge of the copy desk.  Many new measures were launched to cut costs and increase efficiency around 2009-10.  One day, he told me and the other copyeditors: “Tell me what the rules are and I will play to win.”  What he hated most was the bosses changing the rules constantly.  How can one succeed if the rules keep changing?

Someone could just walk out and say: “Forget the rules.”  But as my English teacher in high school had noted in a discussion about the novel “Catcher in the Rye,” if that’s the only game in town, rebelling would leave people on the sidelines, doing nothing.

Maybe God’s laws are similar.  People toss up their hands and declare that they won’t play by those rules.  They don’t realize that those rules prepare for the most beautiful party full of games, revelry and fun.  They will be left in the sidelines, doing nothing.  Maybe that’s hell.

This week’s challenge ended with a question: Are we in it to win it?

What about me?

Tell me what the rules are and I will play to win.