Life’s a Game: What are You Playing For?

When taking a relaxing walk in nature, you don’t worry about whether you’re “good” at walking in nature. The purpose of walking in nature is not to achieve a specific outcome, but rather to enjoy the adventure. “There’s no more to going for a walk than what you’re doing right now.” Is life really any different? Is your job really any different?

Life is a Series of Games

As a teenager, I thought adult life was straightforward. I would get good grades at school, attend university, secure a high-paying job (probably in finance), do that for forty-plus years, become wealthy and attain a certain level of status, and then retire. Along the way, I would find a spouse, have children, and start a family. Simple.

During an episode of his podcast, Tim Ferris talks to Naval Ravikant about Naval’s tweet — “The reason to win the game is so you can be free of it.”

“I like to think I’m free of almost all the games at this point. What are the games? All of life is games, right? You start out with the family game; you do the school game, the grades game, the getting girlfriends and boyfriends game, the getting married game, the having kids game, the making money game, the having the career game, the getting famous game, the dressing well game. It’s so much social games. There are a few that are not games. Meditation you’re not doing; if you’re scoring points in meditation, you’re doing it wrong. Yoga, these are single-player games, right? It’s really the multiplayer games are the ones that suck you into society and into anxiety.” — Naval Ravikant.

I used to think that life was a game of getting wealthy, gaining status, being a husband and father. But I never stopped to think about why I wanted to play these games. In life, you have to play some games, but the trick is knowing which ones to play and when to stop.

Trying to win too many games at once will only cause more stress. There are two ways to approach the games you’re playing. First, you can play the games and stop when you’ve won. The hard part is realizing when to stop. Once you’ve achieved the goal, you can stop playing the game. Alternatively, you can keep playing the game indefinitely.

In Ancient Greece, Socrates was taken to a market full of fine and luxurious items. Looking around, he said, “So many things here that I do not want.” While we all want certain things, we also have certain needs. The hard part is realizing what we truly want and need. Society conditions us to want or feel like we need certain things, such as wealth, status, a spouse, or countless other things. It can be difficult to determine what is worth pursuing and what is not.

Golden Globe Award winner Jim Carrey says, “I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer.”

Many “wealthy” individuals have vast fortunes, but they often focus solely on increasing their wealth. While pursuing endless amounts of money may bring them happiness, it can become problematic if they also try to be good parents and spouses, dress fashionably, and achieve other goals in their lives. Something has to give.

“The world has a bogus formula for success, actually, which is what I had been suffering under and what I had just witnessed. That if you want to be happy … if you want to die happy … Sam … here’s the deal. Work hard, succeed, bust your pick, bank your success, die happy; and it’s wrong, it’s not true, and we all kind of know it’s not true.” — Arthur C Brooks.

Telic versus Atelic Activities

Most of what we are doing right now only has meaning in that it will provide the foundation for something in the future.

When it comes to walking in nature, asking whether you’re ‘any good’ is not relevant. There is no specific purpose or outcome to achieve, unlike walking to the supermarket. In fact, the most efficient way to reach the endpoint when taking a walk in nature would be to never leave in the first place.

One of the most confounding aspects of success is that it can sometimes feel like failure. When we achieve something, it’s done and finished, and we must move on to the next thing. This can leave us feeling empty and longing for the accomplishment we’ve just completed.

Part of the problem is that we tend to view goal-setting and achievement as a linear process. We set a goal, work towards it, and then achieve it. However, life is not always so straightforward. Our goals and accomplishments are often intertwined, and achieving one goal can lead us to new ones. This doesn’t mean that successes don’t feel good. Achieving goals can be enormously satisfying and gratifying. However, they also don’t last forever, which can be difficult to accept. The key is to relish our successes while they last and to view them as part of a larger journey.

In “pursuing a goal, you are trying to exhaust your interaction with something, as if you were trying to make friends for the sake of saying goodbye.” — Keiran Setiya.

What’s the solution? The answer lies in the difference between telic and atelic activities:

• Telic: Activities such as buying a house, starting a family, or earning a promotion are often telic. These activities have an end goal, making them feel like projects that one can finish or complete.
• Atelic: Some activities do not have a finished state, a point of termination, or exhaustion at which there is nothing more to do. Walking for the sake of walking is an atelic activity. Similarly, spending time with family or friends, studying philosophy, and living a good life are all atelic activities. You can stop doing these activities if you choose, but you can never complete them.

“If you are going for a walk, hanging out with friends, studying philosophy, or living a decent life, you are not on the way to achieving your end. You are already there.” — Keiran Setiya.

Oliver Burkeman argues that paying attention is one of the most important things we can do with our lives. He explains that whenever we become distracted from our goals, we effectively sacrifice a piece of our life. Attention is, in fact, the “substance of which our lives are made.” Every decision we make, every action we take, is a result of our attention. Therefore, anything that diverts our attention takes away from our lives. That’s why it’s so important to choose carefully which games we play and to resist games that don’t align with the life we want to live.

“We don’t tend to take on board the truth that our attention isn’t just one of the tools we use to live our lives; but in some sense, attention is your life. That your experience of being alive consists of nothing other than the sum of everything to which you pay attention. At the end of your life, looking back on it, whatever compelled your attention from moment to moment, is simply what your life will have been.” Oliver Burkeman.

Enjoy the journey, don’t just focus on the destination.

Left-Hand Path

It took some time for me to critically assess the reasons behind why I played each game and decide which ones were worth playing and which ones weren’t. But once I accomplished this, life became much simpler.

Joseph Campbell, a Jungian psychologist, discusses the concept of choosing the paths our life takes, either the right-hand or left-hand path.

The concept of the right-hand path varies across different cultures. Essentially, it consists of a set of rules and games that govern how we should live and interact with society. While the ultimate goal of the right-hand path may be considered “good,” it’s crucial to recognize that it’s often taken for granted. This can result in people blindly adhering to the rules without questioning them, which can have harmful consequences in some cases. Therefore, it’s important to be aware of the right-hand path and to scrutinize the games it demands that you play.

It is easy to get caught up in societal games. Many people have spent their entire lives playing the “career game,” only to later regret that they did not spend more time playing a different game. They should have played the “family game” instead of the career game that society encouraged them to pursue.

80% of millennials say that a life goal is to get rich and a further 50% say that they want to get famous.

Robert Waldinger, the Director of the over 75-year-long Harvard Study of Adult Development, believes that “good relationships keep us happier and healthier.” According to the study, the best predictor for happiness, mental health, and physical health among octogenarians is actively leaning into healthy and fulfilling relationships and actively replacing relationships throughout life. Waldinger emphasizes that “social connections are really good for us, and loneliness kills.” This sentiment is not surprising. The number one regret of people who are dying is that they wish they had the courage to live a life true to themselves, not the life others expected of them.

What if you were to examine the games you’re playing right now? Start by considering what the end goal of each game is and what it contributes to your life. You may soon realize that you do many things and play many games not because you’re passionate about them, but because you have unconsciously been conditioned to play them — you’ve taken the right-hand path.

“If you follow your bliss … the life you ought to be living is the one you are living.” — Joseph Campbell.

Unlike the right-hand path, the left-hand path has no predetermined rules or goals. You choose the rules and goals, without any pre-existing framework. Why can’t we stray from the traditional path and develop our own morality that affirms life? When Socrates said, “There are so many things I do not want”, he reflected his choice to take the left-hand path. He determined his own values and life’s path.

“If you’re worried about falling behind other people who know what they want and are already moving along a career path, don’t. Their goal is to follow their passion; yours is to discover what your passions are.” — Guy Winch.

What gives your life meaning? Which games will provide a fulfilling journey along the left-hand path? However, this does not mean that you should not use your present moments to build things that you would like to see come to fruition in the future.

“Theres more to life than being happy … Our culture is obsessed with happiness, but I came to see that seeking meaning is the one fulfilling path.” — Emily Esfahani Smith.

Peter Adeney, also known as “Mr. Money Mustache,” is a blogger who writes about how he was able to retire at the age of 30. Despite working a standard tech-industry job, he made some smart choices that allowed him to achieve early retirement. He lived frugally, avoided unnecessary expenses, and saved as much money as possible.

How much money do you need to save to live comfortably? What kind of lifestyle do you want to maintain? While money is not an end in itself, it is definitely necessary for happiness. Money can buy you the freedom to design the life you want. According to a 2010 study by Princeton University, there is a positive relationship between income and happiness up to an income of US$75,000 per year, beyond which there is no relationship. Therefore, if you choose to live a life with less consumption than the average, you can achieve the same outcome while spending less than US$75,000 per year.

For Mr Money Mostache, the choice was clear: he wanted to retire to a small town with enough money to live a “frugal, yet badass life of leisure”. He realised that he needed to play the game of ‘getting wealthy’, but he treated this as a telic activity. He set an endpoint of US$600,000; he stopped when he saved this much. This is enough for him to spend US$25,000p.a. (about 4% of his portfolio) and never run out of money.

Mr. Money Mustache had a clear goal: to retire in a small town with enough money to live a “frugal, yet badass life of leisure.” He realized that he needed to play the “getting wealthy” game, but he saw it as a means to an end. He set a target of saving US$600,000, which is enough for him to spend US$25,000 per year (about 4% of his portfolio) and never run out of money.

What’s the takeaway? You choose your own left-hand path, and you can buy your freedom and happiness, freedom from the rat race.