The Oregon Trail

 

  

“I picked up a new game today at a thrift store,” Elaine said.

“Really?  What’s it called?”  I asked her.  I wasn’t terribly interested at the moment.

“The Oregon Trail,” she said.  “I think it is a version of the game that used to be available on computers back in the day.”

I remembered the Oregon Trail from my younger days, playing on an Apple IIc computer.  They weren’t good memories.  I had never won the game – never even gotten close as far as I could tell.

One evening we broke out the cards, dutifully handed out resources, and stacked up the calamity cards and began to play.  Disaster struck fairly quickly.  Vincent placed a card down that instructed him to draw a calamity card.

With bated breath we watched him draw the card.  “You have been bitten by a snake,” the card said.  “You Died!”

Bit by bit we meandered our way along, one member of our party died of cold (we didn't have a clothing resource card) and another of dysentery.  Finally, the last succumbed to bad water. 

“Well, that was depressing,” I said.  “Of course, it seems like a pretty faithful replication of how playing the original computer game was.”

I wondered if it was this dangerous to travel the actual Oregon Trail.  What percent of folks who embarked in their covered wagons actually made it through?

I asked Google and it told me that 90 percent of those early travelers made it through.  Still, if you had a one in ten chance of dying while doing something -- say traveling to Oregon, you might think twice before embarking on the adventure.

The death rate on the game seemed much higher.  My guess is that 90 percent of the people who play the Oregon Trail game lose all of their resource cards while crossing rivers and then perish in the wilderness, far from family and friends, their only memorial a scribbled name on a makeshift tombstone.

What many people don't realize is that even in the year of our Lord, 2025, death rate is exactly the same as what it was in 1840s and 50s when the Oregon Trail was in use.  Humans live longer -- the average age of death in the United States in 1860 was around 40 (although adults who survived childhood would typically make it to their early 50s), while today it is in the upper 70s, but one hundred percent of people still die.

I tell my patients that my goal is not to get them to live forever, but simply to help them to be healthy in the time they have here.

10 

Seventy years are given to us!

    Some even live to eighty.

But even the best years are filled with pain and trouble;

    soon they disappear, and we fly away.

Who can comprehend the power of your anger?

    Your wrath is as awesome as the fear you deserve.

Teach us to realize the brevity of life,

    so that we may grow in wisdom.

This is from Psalm 90, a Psalm attributed to Moses.  The poem makes the point that those who understand the shortness of life and the certainty of death will choose their activities with wisdom.

The Oregon Trail game is far from a rollicking good time, but if it encourages those who play it to number their days and realize the importance of using time wisely, then maybe it is worth playing.  While in these modern days the rate of death from snake bite, bad water, and dysentery have dropped considerably, still, none of us will live forever.  It is best to use our short, allotted time wisely.

Whether we are given a few years or a hundred years, the day is coming when we will meet our Creator.  Hopefully we will have filled those days with things of value and pursued a goal worth attaining, unlike those who finish the Oregon Trail game, who find that successfully navigating the trail only leaves them with a knowledge that they have survived a game that weeds out most of the weakest in the party.