In the previous post (here) we outlined 10 features that build the 3C’s – Character, Cognitive skills, and Communicating. Now, we want to know how life-building chess can help practice those 10 features. Let’s start with…
Humility. Like anything worth doing in life, chess is a challenge. Easy to learn, challenging to master. Maybe because it’s a game, an attitude develops in us that we should be good quickly. Or worse, because we picked it up swifter than others do, that we become full of pride and arrogance.
Yet complex systems – like chess and life itself – require a self-awareness that we are always learning. We cannot know everything. Each of us learns and grasps things at different speeds. In fact, humility teaches us that it’s always our job to help others, even when we win, to help them improve.
Humility helps us understand that we are all actively getting better in our understanding and ability the best we can. Proverbs 14:8 says, “The wisdom of the prudent is to understand their way…” That way is a path that begins with humility.
Chess encourages and puts humility into practice.
