How to overcome guilt - Playing Carrom in alternate universes.

Background:

Yesterday, I attended a carrom tournament organized by our co-worker's union. It was a friendly night, with lot of them playing the game against each other. There were no high stakes, while the players were at it, I was just being a spectator. I watched my friends playing. I wouldn't say the pair were better than the opposition, yet they gave a good fight. Three matches were played and they lost two of them, the final one was the most exciting as each of the team had many chances to win. They struggled with one piece from each black and white, on the board, as they could not sink the queen and their final peace for a win. By the time they came to five minutes from the finishing strike, all the other matches were finished on other tables (there were four of them) and everyone gathered around their table cheering either one or the other group. Can we not take sides when playing a game? maybe impossible, as that brings the thrill to the life. Thrill of a challenge. However, my friends could not come out as winners. And we had a good post-mortem discussion on what went wrong and what went right. Obviously, not each of them were at same skill level and each one felt that they themselves were responsible for the loss.

Playing carrom

"I think you would have a better chance if you paired up with someone better than me". That was the ultimate conclusion. I myself thought about this statement and found that there were plenty of things which made the statement false. Maybe the loss was just deterministic, rooted by the reasons that started from the time of the big bang. That is as far as what we can reason out from the modern scientific observation of the cosmoses. I agree that need more explanation, after all I did say that to my friend and he did not understand what I meant. So, here is answer to the problem and the unnecessity of the reasons of the self-doubt that created illogically in his mind.

There is no alternate universe while we were playing carrom.

I was there when they played carrom. I was just watching; they were just playing. That happened clear as day during the middle of the night. They tried their best shots, best nerves, and best strategies, but they lost. They partnered up with each other in the hope of winning and they tried and lost. There was no shame on it. That was exactly what happened. The mind cannot agree to this simple truth of losing, failing, or breaking. So, it stupidly creates alternate universe about something which did not happen. It creates scenarios, about "Alternate universes" where doing this or that which I could have done make "That" game won. This creation of alternate universes just does not improve. It just creates a self-doubt which is totally unnecessary. While watching, I did not see any other alternate universe that things do go in a different direction. It doesn't mean we should not get the experience to do it better next time. It doesn't mean, you cannot win next tournament by partnering up with someone better. I just mean for "That" night for that specific game, there is no alternate scenario.

guilt

How to overcome guilt of the past- It is what it is.

As you can see, this is not just about carrom. Any game you have lost in your life will come back as haunts to you if you do not identify these alternate universes mind creates. If you want to move, forward take those lessons and apply to the next game. That game is lost. It is what it is. The situations cannot be changed when they are in the past. "It is what it is" was said by Rusell Buffalino to Frank Sheeran, in the Robert de Niro movie Irishman. When Frank had to kill his beloved friend and Boss Jimmy Hoffa. "It is what it is" is what I would say to my friend who likes to do postmortems on a lost carrom game which was played for fun. "It is what it is", that we should repeat like a mantra when the stupid mind brings out alternate universes to the inaccessible past scenarios. Life will drag on, and just like a lobster shedding its old used exoskeleton, we should shed our past and move on facing the vulnerability of shame and guilt, sometimes. You have nothing fancy to do, to overcome guilt. It is what it is, simply accept it as a fact.