One of my co-workers walked by today and suggested we liven things up a bit by playing duck-duck-goose in our cubicle city. You remember that game, right? You sit in a circle and the person who is “it” walks around tapping each head or shoulder with a “duck, duck, duck…” eventually getting to the chosen soul—presumably someone slower—and yelling “goose!” The “goosed” someone then chases the tapper, hoping to get to them before they get around the circle to their seat…
My favorite experience playing this game was in Haiti with a huge group of over 200 kids attending a VBS we were putting on. They loved it…and actually had their own name—goat, goat, CHICKEN! The most classic moment I remember is when one of the children screamed CHICKEN and started running. The chosen child leapt up and started in hot pursuit. About halfway around, the child being chased felt his pursuer on his heels and made a decision. He veered off of the circle and started running around a nearby school building. Not to be outdone, his pursuer went right after him! We were all laughing hard—it was so unexpected. Then, about the time we got worried they wouldn’t come back—they both came zooming around the other side of the building, neck and neck for the one open seat on the circle… the child with the creative run pattern made it first. We were laughing too hard to come down on the kid—after all, we had simply told him to get to the seat first, we had not said you couldn’t expand the circle! He made no assumptions, just a creative – and successful – choice. There are rules and then there are the things we think are the rules. Rules are a part of our lives (not that we should always follow those…) but the rules we “assume” are there might be keeping us from our goal. And despite the fact that this reminder came from the most random of comments, I thought it was still worth noting.
Why aren’t you taking the creative route?
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