Sudoku is Real Life

Ate Shishi gave my twin, Frankie, a book of seemingly unending Sudoku puzzles. I guessed it was a Christmas present and Frankie was overjoyed. I don't know what is it in Sudoku puzzles that excites her so much. I mean, they're number puzzles for goodness' sake! What other things can be more boring than numbers?

I don't really play Sudoku, but there was that time in November when I answered one that's printed in the tabloid. I thought it was a piece of cake. I even finished it under 10 minutes, and to think it was the first I had. Until Ate Shishi gave the book to Frankie. I learned that there are such things like easy, medium, hard and very hard levels of the game. I thought that is so interesting so I tried to solve one.
Man, medium level was a torture! I just can't figure out the answer. It actually took me a good 45 minutes before I finally gave up. I ended up a loser.

What dragged on while I was trying to solve the puzzle was the familiar feelings I felt. I know I already felt those feelings before. The frustrations, the impatience, the mind blowing headaches, the relief. It hit me, Sudoku puzzle is like living life. You'll feel the excitement and the tension. And you'll sometimes make mistakes. You'll start with a scratch, you'll carefully choose what move to do. One mistake and everything is ruined. You'll try to figure out what went wrong. You'll learn. You'll try to do it right. And then you're the victor.

As I was trying to make some sense to these similarities, I realized how amazing it is that Sudoku is really like the real life. That sometimes we make some decisions just like that, never realizing we might have made the wrong move. And we can only be aware of our mistakes when we learn that the things around us were ruined. We'll try to go back to the start but the page isn't as clear as it was, before our thoughtlessness. Maybe Sudoku was invented to teach us to be wise. That we must do our things right and flawless from the start, so that we won't have to restart with those shameful marks of mistakes. Sudoku and real life may be similar in some ways, the only difference is that in Sudoku, you can consult the last few pages for cheats if you think you can't solve the puzzle. But in real life, there are no such things like cheats. You can never give up no matter how badly trapped you are in a dead end. The only option available is to keep going on.