Life is not a game

This text was written by Michael Laurence. Beforehand at Get Wealthy Slowly, Michael has shared his ideas on investment risk and what occurs when more money makes you miserable.

You hear the phrase “the sport of life” on a regular basis.

There are books on Amazon instructing us on how to win at the “game of life”. Hell, Milton Bradley’s “The Recreation of Life” from 1860 — nonetheless bought as we speak — was the primary standard board sport in the US.

Within the Actual World, the sport of life’s guidelines and standards for achievement are obscure and by no means explicitly acknowledged. However everyone knows what they’re. To win, you want:

• cash (or, extra precisely, conspicuous consumption)
• bodily attractiveness
• youngsters who go to nice faculties and are athletically profitable
• and so forth

“The sport of life” has change into greater than a metaphor. Many individuals — obsessive about their standing, profession, or the place their youngsters go to high school — have internalized this concept and actually view their life not as one thing to get pleasure from, however as a contest to be gained.

It is a tragedy. Life is not a sport.

A sport is an exercise the place you compete towards others. In video games, gamers pursue objectives with no intrinsic worth. It does not actually matter who places a ball by way of a hoop (or over an arbitrary line) extra steadily, proper? Video games are ruled by exterior guidelines that the gamers haven’t any position in creating however which they nonetheless should observe. In most video games, there’s just one profitable participant or crew. Most individuals are “losers”.

Earlier than I am going on, let me say I like sports activities — each enjoying and watching. Video games are lots of enjoyable. They’re nice hobbies.

Video games are, nevertheless, a horrible template for all times.

The Good Life

For one, that which is essential in life can’t be competed over. Whereas every of us has our personal particular imaginative and prescient of the nice life, we are able to all agree a great life tends to have sure traits: residing by a set of ethics, sustaining significant relationships, time to pursue hobbies, and fulfilling work.

Curiously, these are all summary, subjective objectives that don’t match right into a aggressive framework. It is unimaginable to measure and evaluate whether or not Tom Smith or Jane Doe have extra significant relationships. How are you going to say who’s extra fulfilled at work? How do you quantify how effectively you (or I) adhere to a code of ethics?

Then again, it is easy to match the tangible, goal standards of “success”: who has a nicer automobile, a much bigger home, a extra prestigious job, and children at higher faculties.

Should you view life as a contest, you naturally prioritize these issues that may be measured, these issues that may be competed for. Because of this you concentrate on goal — however finally petty — considerations. The competitors subordinates what’s significant in life to trivial prizes that may be competed over.

Select Relationships over Competitors

What’s extra, competitors corrodes relationships.

Whereas relationships are complicated, at their core all wholesome fulfilling relationships require real mutual affection. Merely put, you have to be rooting for the individuals in your life to succeed, pleased in the event that they get a promotion or their child will get into Harvard. That is subsequent to unimaginable in the event you view your life as a contest and the individuals in it as rivals.

Once you view life as a sport, you need others to fail — or a minimum of to be barely much less profitable than you’re. Viewing life as a contest converts family and friends from individuals you care about to those uneasy, ambiguous relationships the place you’re partially rooting for these individuals…however concurrently additionally attempting to beat them on the sport of life.

For sure, this isn’t conducive to real closeness.

Play by Your Personal Guidelines

Following different individuals’s standards for achievement negates what you worth.

You’re a singular particular person, with your individual strengths and weaknesses, your individual objectives and preferences. The nice life is about attempting to stay based on your values and make the trade-offs that maximize your happiness. This merely isn’t doable whenever you abide by what the sport values: cash, consumption, tutorial status, youth athletic excellence.

The second you enter the sport, you’ve surrendered your autonomy and are prioritizing what others deem essential. You’re chasing life objectives that you simply had no position in formulating however which now you’re pursuing for the sake of “profitable.” Any “victory” in a sport the place you’re residing life on different’s phrases will finally show to be Pyrrhic.

Put together to Lose

You may (and certain will) lose the sport of life, which like all video games is zero-sum.

Perhaps you’re one of many .01% who’s extremely sensible, prosperous, charming, and bodily engaging, who finds an exquisite partner, and has a bunch of cute youngsters who find yourself within the Ivy Leagues. If that is the case, I’m pleased for you.

For the opposite 99.99% of us, the unhealthy information is that we’re going to take care of frustrations and setbacks and plenty of issues we merely don’t excel at and by no means will. The excellent news is that we are able to nonetheless have an important life if we merely take care of these issues as they arrive, comfy with who we’re, surrounded by individuals we care about and who love us unconditionally.

Nevertheless, it is tough to have a great life when each time we fail we really feel disgrace and embarrassment as we evaluate ourselves, unfavorably, to individuals we deem extra profitable. Should you’re enjoying a “sport,” the stakes of life’s inevitable failures and disappointments are so excessive that it makes life a terrifying ordeal, haunted by a specter of public defeat on the sport.

That is no solution to stay.

Remaining Ideas

Evaluating your self to others has no good consequence. Both you go searching and contemplate your self inferior to your friends (which makes you insecure and sad), otherwise you deem your self superior (which makes you conceited and egotistical). Neither is conducive to happiness or to being a great particular person.

Video games are enjoyable and competitors is fulfilling — supplied they contain trivial issues. By all means, go all out to win whenever you golf, run a 5k, or play fantasy soccer. However when these issues are over, go searching at your loved ones, mates, profession, and worth system and understand that these issues are method, method too essential to be trivialized by turning them right into a sport.