Hangman

Hangman

When we were young, we played a game called hangman

The rules were simple, guess secret letter to form a word and save a man’s life.

Guess the wrong letters a number a times and the man gets hanged.

Which taught us that if you say the wrong things a number of times, a fictitious man’s life ends.

But what if I told you that we were still playing?

What if I told you that every interaction with any given human is like a game of hangman?

In which our words and actions are submitted like letters.

See, in the game you can keep guessing.

Letter after letter, paper after paper, hanged man after hanged man.

Until you finally get it right, until you finally won.

But if the man in hanged man was actually real,

Wouldn’t you be more inclined to think before you spoke?

We so carelessly litter our minds with such hateful words and hateful speech,

That we forget that we aren’t dealing with a stick figure.

And maybe it’s easier to hate, maybe it’s easier to focus on the lives of others

Because the answers to the questions like:

How tight is the noose around my neck?

How many letters do I have left?

Is anybody even trying to get me down from here?

Is anybody even trying to win my game?

Is anybody even trying to save me?

Are too scary for us to face let alone know the answer to.

One thing I noticed about this game is that,

We draw the man being hanged every time we got a letter incorrect.

But that’s not right.

Because of this we taught ourselves to be defined by the mistakes and imperfections.

And forget to build ourselves up with the positive answer.

And only when we get the word right does the person not get hanged?

However we never draw the man coming down

We just crumble up the paper and start again

But that’s not right either.

The condition of victory shouldn’t be to pause the hanging

It should be to save the man from the gallows

To erase the words that put you there and internalize the words that set you free.

But this is real life

Our words are marked with ink not led

And our actions cannot be erased

And we only get one sheet of paper.

So ask yourself,

Which words are you going to let solve the puzzle?

And which words are you going to let tighten the noose.

Just keep in mind

Every interaction is like a game of hangman

And you never know that your hurtful words

Will be their LAST LETTER!