What did you obtain from chess in life and reality?

To me....Chess is how my mind and thought process reacting to particular situation...Win or lose is it's me responsible for that..When I lost a game, I try to find a win...If I won, I try to continue that...

My name is Marvin and I'm a chessaholic. I agree with sameartist. It makes time go by and there are moments of pure beauty and satisfaction. essekherif01 might be right, but I'm stuck with my addiction. I have never killed myself while playing chess. Wanted to, maybe, at times, but I didn't.

I thought chess was reality and that you were a figment of my imagination.

Addiction versus Medication. Frequency and need are not enough to qualify a habit as an addiction, i think. One needs sustained negative global health consequences to make it so. Otherwise it might just be what the doctor should have ordered:

Glasses for the myopic. Haven of solitude to the overexposed or overextended individual, what ever the boundaries are. Short term memory exercise to the aging individual, to make the blood go where it gets less often to go.

"Aging individual" Was that a personal slam against me? It's true enough. If I weren't exercising my brain on the 64 squares, who knows what mischief I would be creating. Odd, at my advanced age it is obvious that my powers of concentration have declined, but my knowledge of the game keeps growing, and I think it gives me more pleasure.

Can someone give me an outline or diagram of chess, life, and reality, showing how they fit together. Do they overlap? Stand alone?

You can say by playing chess you obtain lots of benefits in life, like strategic thinking etc.
Besides, I want to emphasize two things.
1) You obtain a lifelong, cheap maintenance hobby. (Unlike skiing, you need snow, gadgets etc.)
2) I'm a jack of all trades master of none person. I learn lots of things in different subjects to a level that I appreciate professionals when I watch them doing that particular subject.

I get excited when I see:
-a good sacrifice in chess
-a good throug pass in football
-a well-sung difficult opera aria etc.

I learn things to get excited watching masters doing it.

I learned when people say they are good at chess they arent and when they say they arent they are._.

@sparowe14 No, it was not, just in case, you were not smiling.

@dboing I didn't really think so. Just trying to make a joke. I'm 73, so I fit the definition.

Ok offhand,
Chess gave me access to a reality where there was justice when I was young and living in a place without it.
Chess taught me how to learn, on my own, a technical subject.
When I went to grad school [in math] I was the least prepared student there. I'll never forget my first day not understanding a single thing in my classes. But I knew how to learn a technical subject. Looking at a proof , searching for the keys to the problems I was facing, was like searching games for a key idea to win that next Najdorf game. I caught up fast and did well.
Chess taught me how to concentrate and focus. Chess expanded my brains capacity for extended hard thought. That prepared me well for the PhD prelims [4, hard, 4 hour long exams].
Chess also helped me get special attention of the faculty. My first week in grad school, two faculty were analyzing a game they just played in the coffee room. I kibbitzed and gave a suggestion. One, the biggest loudmouth in the dept , essentially said "who the hell are you to suggest something!" and I replied that I could beat either blindfolded. well he didnt believe it and I did easily. People then believed there was a connection of chess ability with intelligence so the faculty there helped me make up my deficits.
What I learned in chess helped me with my research as well. I knew that solving a problem no one could means knowing something no one else knew from looking in strange corners no one else searched in.
Chess helped me make friends quickly when I moved from place to place as a young guy.
And somehow chess pleases me.