Living vs Game of Life:
Use Happiness to Fuel Results

Today I’m going to share with you how you can use happiness and joy to fuel your results and performance.

In a world where we relate “work” to feelings of anxiety, stress, and overwhelm and find ourselves constantly trying to find “work-life balance”, I share a powerful distinction called Living vs Game of Life.

This newsletter is part of a two part series. In today’s article, we will cover the difference between living vs the game of life and next week I’ll share more practical tips and tools.

Like me, you’ve probably been conditioned to believe that you need to sacrifice your happiness and struggle your way to then be worthy of any kind of success. And that this “success” will then make you feel happy, fulfilled, and content.

But there are many people in this world who are struggling without much success.

The problem is that most people believe that there’s a conflict between happiness and results. You may find yourself constantly looking outside yourself for what you truly are seeking: happiness, joy, love many times chasing this in the form of respect and validation.

It leads to a life of chasing things, sometimes obtaining them, sometimes not, either way, what is left is not a feeling of true fulfilment and happiness but an empty void.

What if happiness and contentment is the way to more results?

One of my clients last year struggled with the concept of being happy and content whilst striving for his goals and dreams, let alone happiness being a catalyst for success.

Let’s call him Sam. Sam was an ambitious surgeon and artist.

Like many of us, he attached his sense of happiness, self-worth, security, and overall mental wellbeing to external things like how well he was going in his career, his art, his relationships. With this came fluctuations in his mental state and performance. External events made him feel anxious, low on confidence, doubtful, and a feeling of greater separation between who he is now and who he wants to be.

If you’re human, you’ve probably experienced this.

It comes from an underlying beliefs of:

“If I have too much satisfaction and contentment I will lose my drive to succeed”

“I’m not worthy of results and success unless I earn it through sacrifice and struggle”

‘I’m only going to be happy once I achieve X”

Living vs Game of Life: A Deep Dive into Contentment and Achievement

George Pransky, an American psychologist rooted in the teachings of Syd Banks and the philosophy behind the 3 Principles, has shed light on the difference between “Living” and the “Game of Life.” This distinction plays a pivotal role in understanding our intrinsic happiness and how we navigate our external pursuits.

The more I have understood this distinction the greater I have felt a separation between my happiness and any external pursuits. I’ve been able to be happy and joyful in times of difficulty and I’ve been able to perform better whilst being happy.

Living: The Intrinsic Aspect

At its core, living is the inherent, unchanging facet of our existence. It’s about our inner world, the sanctuary where emotions, feelings, and innate contentment reside.

For example, children, regardless of their external circumstances or situations, often find a way to extract joy, curiosity, and satisfaction in every moment. They play in the rain as well as they would under the sun. This is what living truly embodies.

Pransky relates this to the body’s digestive system: with a good digestive system, one unit of food provides one unit of nutrition. In a less effective digestive system, one unit of food would provide only a tenth of nutrition.

In the context of living, how well we live is how well we can find happiness and satisfaction from one unit of life experience. Within one unit of experience of life, we can have unlimited units of satisfaction. This is what Pranksy defines as our living quotient.

You could have two people next to each other on a highway stuck in a traffic jam at 7pm after a long week at work. Person A could be frustrated, annoyed, and desperate to get home so he hoots his horn and gets himself flustered even though he can’t control the traffic.

He would be someone who has a low living quotient at that moment. Person B on the other hand, in the car next to Person A, had the same kind of week at work, but uses this time to pump up the music, relax, and rave it up in the car looking forward to the weekend ahead. A higher living quotient at that moment.

With children, this high living quotient seems to be innate. But why is it that as a child grows into an adult, we generally become more miserable with life? We could say that our capacity to extract contentment and satisfaction out of life decreases.

The simple answer is this: we mix up our “living” i.e. our intrinsic happiness and wellbeing and our external pursuits, our “game”.

One of the reasons is that as we grow, society’s unwritten rules and our own conditioning often lead us to believe that we gain worth only through struggle, only by pushing boundaries and stretching ourselves thin. “If I don’t struggle for this, I am not worthy of receiving it.” This underlying belief plays out in many of our lives because we believe it and it comes more true in our experience.

Growing up, many of us were conditioned to link our self-worth as a human to our achievements. I was no exception. Having been brought up in an Indian culture, like many others, I felt I was only good enough once I achieved some kind of medical or engineering degree and got a job with a six-figure salary. Even now, after having achieved that and gone into a new field, I catch myself attaching my worth as a human being to my business or my art.

What if it’s all just a game that we create?

Game of Life: The External Pursuit

Pransky relates our game of life to playing tennis.

Imagine yourself playing tennis, what if your primary joy came from merely being outside, feeling the sun on your skin, and relishing in the surroundings. This is what living encapsulates. If one were purely in the mode of living and not engaged in the game, they’d be happy to take down the net and erase the court’s lines. It’s all about the environment, the experience, and being present. This is the core of living – a receptive mode where one is open to experiences, free of predetermined conditions or goals.

At the same time, that could be quite boring. There would be no Wimbledon championships.

On the other hand, if you’re playing real tennis, you’re setting constraints: rules, goals, and challenges to overcome. It’s about performing, achieving, and competing. This is part of the fun, challenge, and entertainment of it all.

So, why would anyone choose to play this game of life when pure living can be so rewarding in itself?

The answer lies in the human desire to self-actualize, to push boundaries, and to test one’s capabilities. Just as in the game of tennis, the rules and boundaries serve to enhance one’s skills, the game of life aims to amplify our potential, challenge our abilities, and contribute to society.

The game is essential for our “living well”. It gives us purpose and pushes humanity forward when there’s contribution involved in the game.

The Game of Life is the external canvas where we paint our desires, ambitions, and achievements. It’s the stage where we work on our promotions in our career, build relationships, and essentially craft our life’s narrative.

Life’s Adversities

Let’s get real, life isn’t just about living well and playing a game. Earthquakes happen, wars, and people have their homes blazed in bushfires.

Life has a way of introducing challenges even when we don’t intentionally seek them. Even without actively participating in the game of life, we face crises and adversities. But when one consciously engages in the game, it’s with an intention – often to give back, make an impact, help others, and contribute positively to society.

For me, the times I have faced crisis and adversity, I have been more resilient when I actively have chosen this to be my temporary game. Choosing it rather than resisting it. This allows me to be detached from it and allows me to focus on being the player overcoming the struggles rather than a victim of my circumstance.

The Separation

The Game of Life, while vital for external growth, doesn’t determine our internal worth. Understanding this is crucial. While it’s essential to have goals, dreams, and ambitions, it’s equally important not to tether our internal happiness and contentment to them. Our intrinsic value remains untouched by our external achievements.

I believe we all need a game. It gives us meaning. If we just focused on living, we would just be self absorbed in our lives with no contribution.

In essence, while living ensures we cherish the journey, the Game of Life determines the path we take. Recognising the interplay between the two can bring harmony to our existence, blending contentment with ambition.

But it’s never that easy to separate our living with the game of life. You probably constantly catch yourself attaching your happiness and contentment based on your external game. How do we balance it?

The Balancing of Living and The Game

It’s crucial to understand that the game of life and the art of living aren’t opposing forces. They intertwine and coexist. Life offers myriad opportunities for both pleasure and pain, happiness, and despair. But while living is organic and intrinsic, the game of life is a structured external construct.

Take the example of a banker, adhering to the strict protocols and responsibilities at work, tasks they wouldn’t dream of doing at home. Their chosen ‘game’ is banking, but it’s crucial to keep a boundary between the game and their intrinsic identity. Tragically, many have lost sight of this, attaching their entire worth to their profession, leading to extreme decisions in times of market crashes. We’ve all heard of the stories of bankers jumping off buildings when they’ve lost a bunch of money.

To amplify the quality of living, one must enhance their psychological functioning. Much like how the digestion of food is vital for physical nourishment, psychological processing serves as a source of emotional nutrition. This balance ensures we lead a fulfilled, enriched life.

This brings us to a poignant question: why does a child, so full of life and joy, grow into an adult riddled with complexities and, at times, unhappiness? The answer often lies in their understanding of the game. As they grow, many misinterpret the game’s nature, merging it with their essence, leading to internal conflicts and discontent.

Understanding and differentiating between the game of life and the act of living is pivotal. It’s about playing the game but knowing when to step back and just ‘live.’ It’s about embracing both structures and spontaneity, challenges and joys, to lead a life of depth and meaning.

In next week’s newsletter, we will focus on:

Reflection points for today:

P.S when you’re ready, here are 3 ways I can support you on your journey of personal and professional transformation: