Life’s a game.
And if life is like any other game, there must mean there’s a way to win at life. A way to beat the game.
So, how do we beat the game?
In the most simplistic of ways, beating the game of life would probably mean avoiding death1 — a feat none of us can accomplish, no matter how many millions of dollars we spend trying to.
But life isn’t such a simplistic game, it’s trickier. More complex in its design.
My intuition2 is that the trickiest part of the game is figuring out its timeline — the actual playing time you get.
As convenient as it would be for us to accept the fact that the clock starts running at conception, and that the buzzer will ring in the stadium of our minds just as we’re about to take our last breath, that is not how the game of life works.
The game does not end at death, nor does it begin at birth.
To truly figure out our timeline, we need to first figure out what our goal is — how do we beat the game?
We’ve gotten closer to the answer by recognizing that it isn’t death that we are trying to avoid. But there’s still not a clear path to what the right answer is.
If you — like me — thought of avoiding death as the most simplistic answer, you know too that there’s an underlying fact that gets us to that answer.
“If avoiding death is beating the game, it must mean that playing the game is the prize itself — living life, is winning at life”
And that could be a satisfactory answer. The chance at living is the greatest gift we have ever received — so living life is winning. The only thing that the above answer gets wrong is that life, and the game, are not synonyms.3
Life is not the game and the game is not life.
With that understanding, I’d re-write the answer to our question as follows.
“Beating the game means you are allowed to live life — living life is the prize for beating the game”
So, what do I think are the differences between life and the game? Well, while to many it may seem that all of us are living life, the reality is that most of us are just playing the game — the illusion just comes because of the sheer number of players. It tricks us into thinking that the game and life are one.
But step back and think about it. What about what you think of as life, are you really choosing to live?
Are you not “living” in a world where most choices were pre-selected for you? A role-playing game where you get to choose whether to be an accountant, a banker, or a consultant — but not a game where you get to choose not to be any, and instead become a chef, a wanderer through the world, or an artist?
Now, don’t mistake what I write as me saying that the chef or the artist are any more winners (or any less players) than the accountants or the bankers — the difference between them in my writing underlines choice.4
Life begins only the second we have choice
Choice to do what we want to, when we want to.5
So finally, onto our unanswered question — what is the game’s timeline? If the game doesn’t begin at birth, when do get to start playing in order to earn our living?
Well, the game starts the second you become conscious of your status as a player in the game. So if you weren’t with me already…
Welcome to the game.6
(1) The end of the game.
(2) I ask that you listen to me but I caution you not to believe me. I (like you) am just another player of the game — I’m just sharing with you what I have found as (my) truths as I have played.
(3) Life ≠ Game ∧ Game ≠ Life
(4) I only use them as examples because there’s more bankers and consultants wishing to be chefs and artists than there are chefs and artists wishing to be bankers and consultants.
(5) As Julian Shapiro puts it > Success is simply having the freedom to focus on the ongoing grind you actually enjoy. While not mentioning choice by word, that is the essence of what Shapiro is saying — winning at the game (success) allows you to choose (focus) to do what you want (on the grind) when you want to (ongoing).
(6) Wait, but what about the end of the game? That one is for all of us to figure out, my friend.