So many of us spend much of our lives not allowing our true and full selves to come out. Sometimes, we do it because we are afraid of really going for it and trying to fulfill on our dreams for fear of failure. Oftentimes, we do this in an effort to connect with others thinking they might not like us if they find out who we really are. Does that seem as ridiculously silly to you as it does to me now that I’m writing it? Even if we succeed in achieving our goal of connecting, it isn’t really us who is in fact connecting with those others if we aren’t sharing our true selves.

I remember I used to love playing chess in high school. As you can imagine, that isn’t the first thing I shared about myself when I started making new friends in college. I probably haven’t even shared that with anyone for more than 20 years now! I may not have even played a good game of chess for that same period of time – and in no small part because chess isn’t “cool” according to many. Without thinking too hard about it, I would offer that chess could actually be the most intellectually stimulating and individually competitive game there is. Read more ›