Come. Sit. Do you play? The whole world is in chess. Any move can be the death of you. Do anything except remain where you started and you can’t be sure of your end.

When I was sixteen I won a great victory. I felt in that moment that I should live to be one hundred, now I know I shall not see thirty.

None of us know our end really, or what hand will guide us there.

A King may move a man, a father may claim a son.

That man can also move himself. And only then does that man truly begin his own game.

Remember that howsoever you are played, or by whom, your soul is in your keeping alone.

Even though those who presume to play you be kings or men of power. When you stand before God, you cannot say “but I was told by others to do thus” or that “virtue was not convenient at the time.”

This will not suffice.

Remember that.

Also published on Medium.