White Elephants...

I just had an epiphany.

White elephant gift exchanges are kind of like life.

Everyone brings something different from the table - some people's are quite attractive, some are funny, some seem like complete junk...and they are all wrapped up in a disguise. Sometimes you can tell from how it's wrapped or from the shape or size, but more often than not, what you see on the outside is nothing close to what you get.

People go out and pick what looks good to them, most often based on looks. If they don't like it, they try to take someone else's from them. After a while, the best gifts get "locked" with someone who is the "lucky one" to have landed them...but most gifts end up unappreciated and sometimes even unwanted.

Sometimes fate strikes where one person opens a gift and sees it as junk, but someone else sees it and thinks that is something they can totally use and would love to have. These are the lucky ones. The rest are left to fight over the more attractive gifts, and the few stuck with what they don't want are left searching for the remainder of the game, powerless to change their fate.

You can argue that there are several holes in my theory, but you can't deny the relevance and ties the scenario shares with our lives. You can see it in our relationships, in our careers, and even in the little choices we make along the way...

Who knew something so trivial would make so much sense.

Then again, sometimes it's easier to understand life when you can step back and see it for what it is. It's not about how you wrap it up - it's about what's inside.

If it's wrapped up really pretty AND has a cool gift inside, you better hope you can lock that one up ;)