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If how your mind processes is equatable to chess, then life in itself is like playing a game of bowling.

I'm running short on time to write this, so it may be shorter and not as well-written as some of my other "___ is like ___" crap, but it should still inspire, nonetheless.

My father's birthday is today, so we went to the bowling alley, as he likes to bowl.

It's interesting, bowling allies. You have to wear a certain type of shoe. It doesn't matter what type of shoe you're wearing now- you need bowling shoes.
And after that, you have to make sure you have the right bowling ball. Not too light, not too heavy. And the holes for your fingers? Those have to be spot on or you're just asking for trouble.

And then, playing your game. You only get three letters for your name- so choose what you want in there carefully. Not only that, but you get two tries. Two tries to get your game straight is good.
But, there's funky math. If you get a strike, ten points is added to your next two turns. And if you get a spare, ten points is added to your next turn. So. I'm not quite sure how it works if you get so many strikes in a row, but I know that if you bowl a whole game of strikes, it's worth 300. The numbers themselves are not important. It's the math. It's all.. Discombobulated and weird. Not how normal things are.

So knowing all this, you've got to actually roll the boll. Or Bowl the ball? Or it throw? Well. For my sake, we'll say it's rolling the ball.
So in order to roll the ball, you have to step toward the alley thing, throw your arm back, let it come forward, then the ball pretty much rolls from the fingerholes on to the pins.

Gutterball.

What did you do wrong?

Many people come up to the line-alley-thing in different ways. Some step, some have a certain number of steps, some twirl, some just stand and drop. The main thing is the actually dropping/rolling the ball part.

You can't bend your wrist, or twist it. You can't throw the ball, and you aim with your thumb.
You can't think too much, or too little, and even if you do roll the "perfect ball", down the line, it all depends on how the pins fall. If the fall right, you get a strike, if the fall awkwardly, only some pins will fall, failing to knock down the others.

Life is like that.

If you don't think ahead, you're screwed.
If you do think ahead, you're better off, but still you're pretty damn screwed.

You get the information you need-your shoes- and start planning for your future. You look for the education you need-entering your name-, for your future.
You major what you need/want to major in-how you get to the line-alley-thing- and once you get out of your post-secondary school/apprenticeship/mentorship/job core/training, you roll the ball.

You plan ahead too far, and you're screwed. You can't get from point A to point B correctly. You don't think ahead at all, you're screwed. You don't even know where the hell point B is.

But there's good news. You get a second chance.

Man is ever-impressionable. The nifty thing about the human race is we can think for ourselves. We know that if we fail once, we can try again. Fall over? Try again.
Get a gutterball? Try again.

Did you know if you get two gutterballs in a row, you get one point in bowling? For every time you lose something, you learn something. It's all in your head.

You can do this.

Look ahead, aim with your thumb, don't bend or twist your wrist. You can do it. Bend your knee if you have to, build a support system, let the ball roll from you. Let the ball go toward your future, and let the future fall into place.

Life is hard. Bowling is hard. Some people have a natural knack. Others do not. That isn't fair, if the person next to you can get three strikes without problems, and you have to try really hard to just get a spare.

But in the longrun, who is better off? You, who has to work for things, or the other, who has them coming to him?

Think about that for a while. Who really is better off?

In bowling, the man who can roll the most strikes would arguable be better off.
But you, who has to try so hard... In life, it's the knowledge you gain from the gutterballs that makes you more intelligent then the other.

A poor man will stay poor if he believes that is all he can do.

It is all mindset.
But even if your mind is in the right place at the perfect time, it still is up to how the pins fall.