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Life – The Ultimate Game

Steve Pavlina has an excellent post I somehow missed from way back in 2006, called Life – The Ultimate Game. I’ve often felt that life feels both less severe and more exciting when viewed as a challenging adventure–as a game–since it creates a much deeper motivation to “play” rather than just letting things run their course. Rather than believing that we’re somehow entitled to being here, and that the world exists outside of our control, it helps to adopt the mindset that “if we’re here, we’re playing”– and if we don’t play well, it’s our own damn fault. This “game” of life is so much more complex and fascinating than most anything else we could be doing with our time. That was the main reason I never got very involved with World of WarCraft– ‘why is my character in better shape than I am, and why does he have more skills than I do?’ (Hours of play until this realization: 14)

“How boring life would be if all of your attempts succeeded the first time… and instantly!” Steve writes.

“A game that includes setbacks, delays, and randomness is a lot more fun. It keeps you playing longer and with greater motivation. Thank goodness our desires don’t manifest immediately, or we’d be bored to tears. It’s the effort and uncertainty that makes life so rewarding because the ultimate reward is the experience of playing, not the gold we collect.”

Supremely well written–as always, I’m impressed by Steve’s writing.