Jenga Blocks Quotes

Relationships should always be a game of mix and match, not a puzzle that you have to perfectly snap into, or a Jenga tower that will collapse as soon as you try to wiggle one block out of place. Customizability is the best part, yet most people try so hard to make their relationship stick to its premade form, a one-size-fits-all shape. Many people don’t take advantage of their own freedom.

In many ways, playing a game is like starting and running a business, which in turn is like embarking on a solo journey down a swiftly flowing river. However experienced you may be, however carefully you plan your trip in advance, once you’re out there being whooshed along by a powerful current, you will be confronted by unexpected obstacles rising up and potentially blocking your way. A propensity to see the way around, over, or through these obstructions and a penchant for the perpetual challenge will keep you speeding on your exciting voyage to success.

But political crises, moments when the keystone of authority of some major governing institution is whisked away like a Jenga block, can produce a tumbling cascade of new forms of politics. We’ve been looking at the tower for so long we forget it’s made of blocks; we forget it can be put back together in a different way. Previous crises of authority in America produced not just concerted movements to reform the institutions of the time, but organic bouts of institutional innovation that created fundamentally new ways of coordinating work and life.

Legos encourage endless adding, especially when you have a dad who supports your habit. In Jenga, the rules promote balance. Jenga forces us to subtract first, requiring that we pull out a block from one of the lower levels before we add to the top level. Sure, Lego’s adding approach has been good for business; but so has Jenga’s mandate to subtract first. It was the game’s novel subtracting rules that Leslie Scott copyrighted, to the tune of one hundred million copies sold.

Henry, you can’t just knock over the tower when you get bored,” one of the guys shouts. “I didn’t” Henry says. “Maybe I’m just not very good at Jenga.” Russ scoffs behind me. “You’re never going to be good at it if you pull the one block keeping the foundation straight.

I stacked the days up like Jenga blocks, imagining I was making progress, and then—crash—along would come a five-hour panic attack or a day of total apocalyptic darkness, and those Jenga days would topple back down again.

I feel like wherever I go, and whatever I do, some piece of me gets left behind. I'm starting to feel hollow. Like a fucking Jenga tower, every day I'm losing a block. I don't know how long I can stay standing.