You Play Games

I haven’t popped up in your inbox for a while.

My 4 month hiatus has given me enough time to pursue my dream of building (and playing) purposeful games.

In the spring of this year I wrote about how the games I’ve built have opened doors.

I plan on writing more about that as purposeful games have always been a passion of mine.

This doesn’t mean I won’t write about AI (it’s the most powerful tool of our time, and incredibly useful for building a playful life full of learning) and personal development.

This is because games and PLAY are my soul’s approach to developing myself and using the powerful tools (like AI) I’ve been blessed with responsibly.

That being said, everything I write about from here on out will be from the lens of PLAYING to LEARN.

If that grates against you, then I encourage you to unsubscribe, because it’s what my soul yearns for. 😃 

If that excites you then you are my people. Welcome home! 🤗 

Without further preamble, let us launch into the game of writing!

Over the past month I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m always playing a game.

The game isn’t necessarily a video game. But I’m still playing a game. This is something I remind myself of often, or I don’t enjoy life quite as much I’ve found.

My reasoning: if I’m playing (not working) a game I’m having fun.

The hard part is remembering that I’m playing a game.

Which brings me to the quote from Chris Voss above, but stated a little different:

Games can be brutal (the hunger games), fun (Halo), joyful (Minecraft), hateful (League of Legends), and everything in between!

My argument is that you’re always playing some kind of game.

And you need to figure out what that game is, or it will destroy you. This is because games have rules and when you don’t follow the rules, you die! Dun dun dunnn!! Or lose or some other bad things happens. This is equally true in the real world, but the consequence isn’t always death (though disobeying the laws/rules of physics tends to be lethal, just ask the Wright brothers about falling).

You see, life is a game in which you’re constantly doing one of three things:

1. Trying to figure out what the rules are or

2. Trying to live by the rules you know or

3. Completely ignoring every rule you know because you just don’t care anymore (the real life equivalent of “away from keyboard” AFK; this ends in angry teammates).

And that’s the game of life, simplified to an outright, probably incorrect, extreme.

You try to learn the rules, or you try to live by the rules, or you give up because you died too many times.

Number 3 is a horrible place to be in. I’ve been there emotionally multiple times over the past 12 months. (If you’re there, please reach out, no one should ever be there for long.)

But you know what’s cool about the game of life you’re playing?

You’re also the game developer. You get to choose the rules you live by. You get to choose what it means to win and what it means to lose.

How will you use your godlike administrative power?

What rules will you change so that life is more FUN?

What does it look like to win (for me, today it’s writing this email!)? What does it look like to lose?

Because you’re always playing a game, and it’s not worth it to live your life playing by someone else’s rules.