Written by Dr. Dobson
When my daughter Danae was a teenager, she came home one
day, and she said, “Hey, Dad! There’s a great new game out. I think you’re
going to enjoy it. It’s called `Monopoly’.” I just smiled.
We gathered the family together, and we set up the board.
Well, it didn’t take the kids long to figure out that old dad had played this
game before. I soon owned everything: all the best properties, Boardwalk, Park
Place. I even had Baltic and Mediterranean. My kids were squirming and I loved
every minute of it. About midnight, I foreclosed on the last property and did a
little victory dance, but my family wasn’t impressed. They went to bed, and
they made me put the game away. As I began putting all of my money back in the
box, a very empty feeling came over me. Everything that I had accumulated was
gone. The excitement over riches was just an illusion. And then it occurred to
me, “Hey, this isn’t just a game of Monopoly, this is life. You sweat and
strain to get ahead, but then one day, after a little chest pain or a wrong
move on the freeway, the game ends. It all goes back in the box.” You leave
this world just as naked as the day you came into it.
I saw a bumper sticker the other day that said, “He who dies
with the most toys wins.” That’s wrong. It should say, “He who dies with the
most toys dies anyway.”
