By: Dread
When I was in eighth grade, my class played a game with paperclips and affirmatives starting with “Y”. The premise was simple: everyone got two paperclips to start and if they said an affirmative starting with the letter “Y”, they would have to give away half of their paperclips to whoever called them out on it. The game got competitive fairly quickly, with certain people being determined to win, but there were also a few people in my class who simply didn’t seem all too interested in it and chose to lose their paperclips on purpose by consciously saying affirmatives starting with the letter “Y”. In a class where almost everyone was ridiculously competitive, I found this to be a bit odd, but no matter what we did, there were always a few students who weren’t as into the challenge as others, so I brushed off their non-competitiveness without thinking much about it. Years later, I realized that there were several implications of this behaviour towards the game, some of which may not even apply to those who chose not to participate competitively, but at the same time acted as learning moments for me.
Looking back at that game, I realize that one explanation for losing on purpose is so that these students would not have had to face losing despite their best efforts—it’s often easier to explain losses by saying that you weren’t trying your best than it is to face the fact that there may be people who are currently better than you at something. This may be a fear for many people, and so this explanation allows them to avoid facing this fear and instead continue to tell themselves that they’re doing alright, and that they’re not falling behind. My eighth grade class was a “gifted” class, which only makes this fear more likely to have been the case amongst the students—it was a class where most of the students were used to being above average and winning all of the time, so losing was likely a fear held by some of my classmates.
The other analogy for this game is more related to society – these paperclips had no inherent value; it was only the game, created and played by my class, that gave them the value that made them so sought-after. This parallels society in a way—often, trends can determine whether or not you are well-liked in society. While following these trends may allow you to “fit in” and win the societal game of life, it may also hinder you from doing what you truly want to do in life, either due to being too focused on the challenges put forth by society, or because these challenges go against your desires. We want to win all the time, but sometimes, this desire may be what is stopping us from truly living our lives. In the case of my eighth-grade class, while those who were trying their best were focused on the game, and almost nothing but the game, those who took a step back from it were able to do what they wanted to do. Not only were they given more freedom of speech by being allowed to say affirmatives starting with the letter “Y”, but because everyone else was so focused on the game, they were allowed a moment to themselves.
I don’t know if this was what my teacher intended when he introduced this game to us, and it most likely was just a fun activity for us, catered to my class's competitiveness. Regardless, the lessons I learned from this activity almost half a decade after I experienced it have helped me understand the world a bit better. Maybe, just maybe, it can help me feel less dread about what is to come in the future.