You forgot your life is a game
When you play a game, be it a sport like golf or tennis, or a card game like poker, or a board game like Clue or Monopoly, you feel good when you win and bad when you lose. Why? Because you have arbitrarily accepted that something is better than something else. You try to get the little white ball in a hole hundreds of yards away in fewer tries than someone else. Is it really "better" to do that? No, there is nothing about the nature of reality that makes it better. It's better because we say so, and only because we say so. The same is true for any sport or any game.
Yet despite the fact that we arbitrarily made up rules that say something is better than something else, we get excited when we "win" (in other words, do what the rules require better than others) and sad or even upset when we "lose." What does it really mean if we win or lose? Take a moment and think about it.
When you play a game, be it a sport like golf or tennis, or a card game like poker, or a board game like Clue or Monopoly, you feel good when you win and bad when you lose. Why? Because you have arbitrarily accepted that something is better than something else. You try to get the little white ball in a hole hundreds of yards away in fewer tries than someone else. Is it really "better" to do that? No, there is nothing about the nature of reality that makes it better. It's better because we say so, and only because we say so. The same is true for any sport or any game.
Yet despite the fact that we arbitrarily made up rules that say something is better than something else, we get excited when we "win" (in other words, do what the rules require better than others) and sad or even upset when we "lose." What does it really mean if we win or lose? Take a moment and think about it.
Can you get that it really means nothing. But because we "pretend" that it matters, we give all we can give, mentally and physically, to winning and not losing, and we have positive emotions when we win and negative emotions when we lose.
And yet, despite those reactions, some part of us knows that we are playing a game. We know that at some point we will put the game away and go back to "real life," to our family and career. So although we have emotional reactions to how well we play the game, the feelings only go down so far and not farther, because we know it is a game. The emotions engendered by a game are rarely as intense as those in "real life."
Life really is a game
Life is a game just like all the other games. The only difference is that life is the only game that we don't realize is a game. Each of us has made up, largely unconsciously, a set of rules (our values) -- based on our worldview and our beliefs -- and we think our rules are right and inherently true. And everyone else's is wrong. Sorry to break the bad news: Ours aren't right and theirs aren't wrong.
We feel the gift of freedom, when we acknowledge that, what we think is real is actually a game. We made up the rules and now we can play the "life game" full out; we can be happy when we "win" and dissatisfied when we "lose." But realize it is only because we said so.
And here's the bottom line: It is always possible to remember that we made up the rules, even if they were made up unconsciously and adopted largely by osmosis from our culture and our parents. And when we do that, we also can remember that events have no inherent meaning, at which point the pain and suffering resulting from "losing at the game of life" can be dissolved on the spot.
Life really is a game
Life is a game just like all the other games. The only difference is that life is the only game that we don't realize is a game. Each of us has made up, largely unconsciously, a set of rules (our values) -- based on our worldview and our beliefs -- and we think our rules are right and inherently true. And everyone else's is wrong. Sorry to break the bad news: Ours aren't right and theirs aren't wrong.
We feel the gift of freedom, when we acknowledge that, what we think is real is actually a game. We made up the rules and now we can play the "life game" full out; we can be happy when we "win" and dissatisfied when we "lose." But realize it is only because we said so.
And here's the bottom line: It is always possible to remember that we made up the rules, even if they were made up unconsciously and adopted largely by osmosis from our culture and our parents. And when we do that, we also can remember that events have no inherent meaning, at which point the pain and suffering resulting from "losing at the game of life" can be dissolved on the spot.
Author and Credits: Morty Lefkoe