He Who Dies With The Most Toys. . .

When my daughter, Danae, was a teenager, she came home one day and said, "Hey, Dad! There's a great new game out. I think you'll like it. It's called Monopoly." I just smiled.

We gathered the family together and set up the board. It didn't take the kids long to figure out that old Dad had played this game before. I soon owned all the best properties, including Boardwalk and Park Place. I even had Baltic and Mediterranean. My kids were squirming, and I was loving every minute of it.

About midnight I foreclosed on the last property and did a little victory dance. My family wasn't impressed. They went to bed and made me put the game away. As I began putting all of my money back in the box, a very empty feeling came over me. Everything that I had accumulated was gone. The excitement over riches was just an illusion. And then it occurred to me, Hey, this isn't just the game of Monopoly that has caught my attention; this is the game of life. You sweat and strain to get ahead, but then one day, after a little chest pain or a wrong change of lanes on the freeway, the game ends. It all goes back in the box. You leave this world just as naked as the day you came into it.

I once saw a bumper sticker that proclaimed, He who dies with the most toys wins. That's wrong. It should say, He who dies with the most toys dies anyway.