Can I Buy a Vowel? Raising the Barr Weekly Memo: Issue 481

I’ve been watching on Facebook the daily posted scores of my friends who play “Wordle” and I must admit I was curious as to what this craze was all about. But I’ve got my own pickleball craze, so I let the hankering pass only to discover that Laurel has been secretly admiring those who post quick solutions to those once daily puzzles.

Well, she finally took the bait and has, over the last couple of days, been smitten with the wordle bug. It seems easy enough; 6 attempts to solve a 5-letter word. I told her it’s a piece of cake with a smirky grin on my face. Until yesterday. Laurel sat working on Tuesday’s word, muttering to herself, grunting about the lack of available vowels, and not wanting to use her last attempt until, she was sure. I grabbed her phone as if to say, “I got this”, only to hand it sheepishly back to her after a few minutes, unsolved.

Why work so hard and intensely if it’s only a silly word game? I remembered what I had learned as a young child in school: the joy of learning is figuring it out for yourself. It really doesn’t matter if it’s wordle, spelling bee, a balanced checkbook, (who does that anymore?), developing a new computer program, or creating an innovative new concept for a client… the satisfaction of making art, solving a puzzle or implementing a new concept for a client brings joy and gratification at having made the journey and successfully completing it.

The joy of learning, doing, and sharing the results is a wonderful thing in any area of life both personal and professionally. I’m not quite ready to call myself a “wordler” but I’m getting close.

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