*I hope you will read this with an open mind and find some humor in it.*

I was playing rounds of UNO with my family at the table (losing terribly, might I add), and it dawned on me that UNO could be one of the best symbolisms of life.

Now hear me out, I am not trying to “adult-ify” and ruin this classic card game for you and the kids. All I’m saying is this game is more serious than you think, folks.

The card game itself isn’t the mind-blowing part. UNO is a great family game because it gets people fired up and causes so much commotion and beautiful chaos. Everyone knows that UNO is a game of strategy. It’s the way it’s played. You see a whole new side of people that you just were not prepared to see. Let me tell you, I was just flabbergasted with the savagery of my peers.

First things first, there are NO friends in this game. Everyone is against one another. You may think that you have friends in this game, but it’s every man for themselves. My own uncle put down that “WILD card” that forced me to draw four…and I knew. I knew it was time to play recklessly. Just like in the real world, people have this mindset to work hard just to benefit themselves.

Occasionally, the whole group will gang up on one person when they see that they are too close to winning the entire game. As the saying goes, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Repeatedly, we would converse across the table making sure that everyone put down the right card that would put a dent in the potential winner’s hand. It didn’t matter if we were hurt along the way, as long as that one person did not win. We were willing to pick up a few extra cards from the deck because that meant the game was still going. As in life, sometimes it is required to stand up together and be united for a greater cause. Even if only for a moment.

The smack talk is ridiculous. Everyone must put their game face on and take on the world at some point in time. You can’t show any fear because particular facial expressions can give away what you have in your hand. In the real world, we have to deal with people that don’t care about our wellbeing and will do anything to put themselves above you. My uncle used the strategy of fear to stop me from doing anything to hurt his hand of cards. I am sad to say it worked because I was scared to skip, reverse, and wild card him.

But we cannot hold this spirit of fear forever. If we do, we will never accomplish what we want to in life. We will never win. In this case, win the game of UNO. It took some words of encouragement from my mother to help me gain the strength to be the savage I knew I could be. Once I realized I had a chance of winning, I didn’t feel so bad changing the color to something I knew my counterparts didn’t have. Now granted, I did not win any of the rounds. But a valuable lesson was to be learned: you will miss 100% of the shots you do not take.

Who knew, that a simple game could turn into a life lessons course? I lost the card game but did I really lose? I learned that I will never play with that group of people again, because between my uncle and my cousin there’s practically no chance of winning, but I walked away with some valuable knowledge. So, you tell me folks, who’s the real winner here?