Life Is A Game
Life is a simple game that we take seriously, sometimes.
This doesn’t take away from the richness and depth of life, but rather acknowledges that most of what we hold as important and serious, are so because we've made it so, not because they are so.
What do I mean?
I watched my daughter as she navigated grade 10 and rep volleyball. She really wanted to do well, so she saw graded assignment and tournament as really important. As a result she got worked up about studying enough, practicing enough and putting enough work in.
This may sound as good news, but the pressure she put on herself was not fun, sometimes it looked downright painful.
This is not unlike many of the leaders I work with. The pressure they put on themselves to achieve can be quite intense. I’ve worked with professionals that despite their senior titles, higher education, awards and recognition, (all the external accolades one could wish for), continue to feel immense pressure.
No degree of outward success seems to put an end to the pressure.
Which leads me to the question, if outward and continuous success doesn’t abate pressure, where does pressure come from? And how do we alleviate it?
Well, here are a few sources to consider:
Fear. While people don’t enjoy the feeling of pressure and stress, at some level they believe that without it they wouldn’t perform. They would walk around aimlessly, never truly accomplishing anything. With time they would lose their job, end up homeless with no friends and no money. (ok, a bit dramatic, but look honestly at your thinking - it often dramatizes life to unrealistic degrees!)
Avoiding feeling bad. They convince themselves that this REALLY does matter, and if this REALLY does matter then a lot is at stake, and if a lot is at stake and it goes wrong, something bad will happen and if something bad happens, they’ll feel bad! Ultimately, they don’t want to feel bad so they make themselves feel bad today in an attempt to avoid feeling bad in the future. Huh? Exactly.
Thought Belief. They believe the passing thought “things won’t go well” or “I’m not prepared” or “this is REALLY important”, even when these thoughts have proven inaccurate every single time in the past. In other words, they give a passing and random thought weight, they engage with it and spend time thinking about it which leads to a bodily sensation we call pressure. They may not want to think the thought, but at some level they believe if it’s coming up, there must be some truth to it. So instead of simply letting it pass, they hold on to it, examine it, play with it, argue with it, appease it - all in hopes of getting rid of it. In other words, let me think more about it so that I can think (and feel) less of it. Not a sound strategy.
Consider this.
What if you don’t believe or engage with the thought “this is really important”. Knowing that things are neither bad and good only we make it so, helps to take some of the pressure off. We believe that we know the cause and effect of important events in our lives, but if we look back, we quickly realize that the bad stuff we thought would happen more often than not, didn’t. And even when the “bad” thing did happen, it often was a blessing in disguise or not as bad as we dramatized in our minds.
What if we’re not made to deal with hypotheticals. Stress and pressure arise because we end up thinking in circles about something that has happened in the past or something that might happen in the future. As there’s nothing to be done now, we simply go around in circles weighing all the possible scenarios, consequences and possibilities. As the possibilities are endless, we end up in a never ending swirl of what ifs. Instead, if there’s something to do, do it. If not, know that you’re in your imagination. No worries. It’ll pass.
What if we have an inner real time response system that knows what to do in the moment we need to do it. The beautiful thing about living at the speed of life is that we are beautifully made to handle whatever happens to us in the moment it happens. While living in the past or future keeps us stuck in hypotheticals, living in the moment has us squarely in the arena of doing something about whatever is happening and needs tending to right now. We deal with what is, rather than running in circles attempting to guess what might be.
What if life is a game. My son loves video games and he plays all out. When he loses he shouts, jumps up and says a few words I’d prefer him not to say, but within seconds it passes and he reengages in the next game. Quick and easy.
What if life were like that!
What if you played full out, and allowed thoughts and emotions to simply pass through you, because another game was just about to start.
What if you held life as a beautiful, precious and exciting adventure that you are wonderfully equipped to play.
What if, win or lose, you always had a pocket full of coins to play another round. And you forgot the last game as quickly as it ended, and put your heart and soul into the game you were playing, in the moment you were playing it.
What if all the games you hold as important and serious, are simply games you really want to win, but mean nothing about how your life will turn out, how valuable you are and how you’ll feel over time.
What if it’s all simply an adventurous, unpredictable, beautiful game that you get to call life, and no matter what level you reach, how many dragon’s you face and gold coins you earn, it’s still simply an adventurous, unpredictable, beautiful game you get to call life.
Your life.