​Most of us know that daily walks are good for us. We may not be able to list many specific benefits, but we know that walking is a low-impact elixir of health that's doable for almost anyone and doesn't require expensive equipment. My morning walks provide another benefit--they spawn lots of ideas that help me create content. To mark the halfway point in the Content Challenge, let's discuss daily walks, the well-known elixir of health, and the silent elixir of content creation.​

According to WebMD, a morning walk yields an extensive array of health benefits. These include, but aren't limited to:

• Feeling better.
• Clearing the mind.
• Lowering blood pressure and the risk of stroke, heart disease, and diabetes.
• Improving memory and reducing the risk of dementia.
• Boosting energy, overall physical health, and mental health.
• Preventing weight gain.

These are impressive! For me, the most remarkable reason to take a morning walk is this statement, also from WebMD: "Studies have found that 1 hour of brisk walking can increase your life expectancy by 2 hours." Wow! One hour of brisk walking can mean two more hours of life. 

In an earlier post, I shared how my habit of early-morning walking began when I started walking our puppies, Pepper and Callie. That was 13 years ago. Callie has passed, and Pepper is old and unable to walk briskly for any distance.  I'm still able to enjoy a brisk walk and have done so for so long that a morning without a walk seems incomplete.  I have two dogs to thank for helping me develop a habit with many health benefits. ​

Alan Moon, the creator of the wildly popular Ticket to Ride board game, says that "Ticket to Ride came into existence in the spring of 2003 during my morning walk along the Atlantic shore in Beverly, Massachusetts.  The night before, I had played a railroad prototype . . . and the playtest had not gone well. I was thinking about how to change it when a new idea suddenly popped into my head. The coastline and scenery disappeared during the rest of the walk, as this new idea formed into an entire game. I began playing it in my head and couldn't wait to get home." 

My morning walks haven't yielded results on that scale, but they certainly help me create content.  Here's what I've noticed:

• In the morning, my mind is fresh. I concentrate better. While I walk, I can ponder ideas and have some uninterrupted time to develop them.​
• Quite often, I meet neighbors. We chat briefly. Something they say or do spurs a thought. Sometimes those thoughts blossom into outlines for articles or blog posts. 
• The beauty and charms of nature spawn ideas.  A fiery-red dawn is awe-inspiring and thought-provoking. A wild bunny, a hawk in an evergreen, a turkey near a stream--these strike my imagination. My mind ponders while my feet pound the pavement. 

When I get back home, my mind is fully awake and ready to tackle the day. Obviously, I haven't come up with an idea as life-changing as Alan Moon's was. Nevertheless, I plan to walk tomorrow--and the next day. I don't know when a "Eureka!" moment will happen. When it does, I want to be able to ponder it at length.

Our family is hooked on the popular board game, Ticket to Ride. We like the travel theme, the variety of maps, all those little trains and stations, and the nuances that make each board similar but different. We play often when we get the opportunity and have experimented with numerous strategies. The concentration is palpable, and the competition is intense.

I don't know if Alan Moon, the game's developer, had this as a goal, but he designed a game that also teaches valuable lessons about life. Content Challenge #8 explores how Ticket to Ride presents life lessons on a board. 

Is my imagination working overtime, or does life mirror what happens on a Ticket to Ride game board? What can we learn about life while playing a table game? Here are a few suggestions:

Plans don't always work out. Robert Burns was right. "The best-laid plans of mice and men go oft awry." If you've played the game even once, you know that your well-laid plans can go horribly wrong in a single round of play. And, the likelihood of disaster increases as the number of players increases. Don't these things happen regularly in real life?
Some blocked plans can be salvaged by making a detour. For example, say that you're the green player in the picture. You kept the destination card going from Helena to Santa Fe. Your original plans to go straight through were thwarted immediately when the yellow player claimed the route from Denver to Santa Fe on his first play. Other players blocked the shorter detours. So, your route to Santa Fe from Helena will include a significant detour through Phoenix. It's not optimal, but still possible.

Has something similar ever happened to you? Of course, it has.  You're chugging along smoothly toward your destination in a relationship, job, or course of training. Suddenly,  you face an obstacle such as illness or financial setback and are forced to detour. Your way isn't completely blocked, but it's significantly altered.  

Some blocked plans don't offer any detours that get you to your original goal. In the game of Ticket to Ride--and in life--plans sometimes have to be abandoned. The idea that held so much promise fizzled when the Great Recession hit. The venture with the strong financial projections in 2019 cost you most of your savings when COVID came and stayed. After trying your best, you fail to finish your education. In these cases, you're forced to focus on another route.

In the picture above, you see that all the routes into Munchen are claimed. When the yellow player--who was working her way from Cadiz on the southwest corner of the map up to Munchen--saw that, she knew that destination card was impossible to complete. Life is like that, too, sometimes. 

​Waiting for details to work out can be excruciating. You need only one more red card to complete a route and end the game. Victory is within reach--if you can just get a red card. Maybe you'll draw a red train card--or a wild card--just in time to win the game; maybe you won't. Either way, waiting is tough.

Learning to look at a problem from several perspectives can help you discover a  solution. Suppose that you've drawn extra destination tickets. All of them look impossible. Then, you tilt your head in a different direction and notice a "backdoor" path that will allow you to complete a long route using only 4 trains. The solution was "hiding in plain sight." You just needed a different perspective to find it. 

I see you nodding your heads as you recall times in real life when, after examining a problem for a long time, you suddenly "saw " a solution. Perspective can make all the difference. 

The most difficult routes often reap big payoffs. My husband and I frequently play the Nordic Countries version of Ticket to Ride. It's designed for 2 or 3 players and features trains, tokens, and cards in unusual colors; you see them pictured below. The section from Lieksa to Murmansk is 9 trains long. You have to be brave to try it, but if you make it, you earn 27 points for your effort!  Life's that way, too. Accomplishing a challenging task often yields huge rewards on several levels. 

Here's today's call-to-action:
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You Accept the CHallenge, Too!

I intentionally ignored one of the most obvious lessons about game-playing and  life:

Sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose. It's trite but true. The important thing is that you keep chugging along. What's your strategy for winning or losing well? Could you verbalize it?

If you're a Ticket to Ride fan, you may have ideas about how Ticket to Ride presents life lessons on a board. I would love to hear them.