The Problem With Waiting for Boardwalk and Park Place
Are you familiar with the board game, Monopoly? It’s a classic.
Boardwalk and Park Place are the two most valuable properties on the board. They cost the most and, as such, deal the biggest blow if you land on them when they are owned by someone else.
This makes them the most coveted color scheme, or group of affiliated properties, in the game. They are also the last and third to last spaces on the game board, in the order of movement from where you start. In other words, you pass by all of the other properties first.
There is a tendency, or a temptation, to hold out for these properties. You don’t want to land on them and then not have the money to buy them. There are 8 different color schemes in the game and if you get too invested in the other ones, you may not have the resources to capitalize on the magical dark blue combo.
Here’s the problem: they are but 2 spaces on a 40 space board. They are the smallest color scheme by number of properties, tied only with the lowest value combo of Baltic Avenue and Mediterranean Avenue. The other 6 color schemes are all made up of 3 properties.
By simple odds, this makes them the least likely color scheme to land on, whether you are trying to buy them or trying to make your fellow players suffer by charging them the high rent they command.
While you are saving your money and dreaming of the ultimate color scheme and trying to make sure that you have not only the $750 needed to buy them, but the $2,000 required to put hotels on the properties, other players may end up buying the rest of the board.
The thing about monopoly is that it is only partially a skill game. There are strategies you can employ in an effort to win. But, luck is a part of the equation, too. And not luck in the sense that “the people who work hardest tend to have the best luck.” Nope. Just in the general sense of “I need to roll a 9 now!” You can’t “skill” your way into owning Boardwalk and Park Place. Not unless you are trying to do a trade with someone, who has already purchased them.
When they aren’t owned, you actually have to land on them to buy them. That isn’t skill. It’s luck. Furthermore, when you are hoping someone will land on them and pay you massive amounts of Monopoly money, you can’t “skill” them into rolling the right number. It’s luck.
So, for example, even if you finally achieve your perfect, dream color scheme, in the time it took you to do so, another player may have already snapped up 2-3 color schemes of their own and built houses and hotels on them. Furthermore, because they have more coverage of the board, there are greater odds that their properties will be landed on. Even if the payouts are smaller, a few stays at a hotel, regardless of the color scheme, will make a serious dent in your resources.
Owning Boardwalk and Park Place is not winning the game. Being the player with the greatest net worth or being the last player standing – that is winning the game.
If you put all of your eggs in one basket, once in a while, that basket will pay off and you’ll win. But, instead of doing that, you want to diversify but keep the assets available so that if the magical pair falls in your lap, you can jump on them. This is the difference between (a.) taking some action, even if it’s not your perfect dream, and being ready for a greater opportunity and (b.) betting the farm on something that may never even happen.
Similarly, with our communities, we sometimes want it to be so perfect. A particular feature, an idea, an effort… it has to be perfect. I get it. I’m very detail oriented and want things to be perfect. But, this desire should not come at the cost of inaction, which will lead to missed opportunities.
Am I saying to launch garbage? Not at all. I am saying not to fall in love with some idea to the point where other good ideas are never good enough. There is something to be said for seizing the moment and taking advantage of the opportunities that you have now and if you are successful enough, you may just end up with that dream opportunity.
Holding out for the dream is no way to achieve it. You have to do more than hope – you have to work with what you have now and improve.
